True Heelers
by Sam285
Summary: An ongoing Blue Heelers series. After two and a half years away, Senior Detective Amy Fox returns to Mt. Thomas following the loss of an old friend and colleague and suddenly, life changes for her and everyone she left behind.
1. Ep 1: After The Night Pt1

**True Heelers**

Disclaimer: Anything you recognise belongs to Southern Star and Channel Seven. The rest (including some characters) belong to me.

This is a series that I began in late 2006. Each storyline is divided up into separate "episodes" and these episodes will contain anything from four to six separate parts. I'm not sure how long this series may last, however at this point, the idea is that it will be an ongoing thing.

**Episode 1: "After The Night"**

**Summary: **_Amy Fox returns to Mt. Thomas, now a Homicide detective, to investigate the murder of an old colleague. The Heelers struggle with the death of a good friend and colleague._

**Part 1**

Even before she reached the police station, Amy Fox could tell that something big had changed in Mt. Thomas in the two and a half years she had been away. People on the street seemed quieter; the usually happy and friendly country mood was sombre. Even the dogs seemed to be carrying their tails between their legs as they walked.

Amy sat behind the wheel of her new silver Vee Dub, trying to remain focused on the road ahead when her mind and eyes kept wandering. The warm November breeze licked her hair back from her face through the open window. She'd never say it, but she had missed this town while in Melbourne working for Homicide.

And now she was back, and definitely not on good terms. A colleague and old friend had been murdered just hours before, and she was already back in town to find the bastard and bring him to justice. As soon as she'd arranged a room at the Imperial Hotel with what she could only guess to be a devastated Chris, she'd go to the station and face what she knew would be a scene of total distress. Old colleagues falling to pieces over the death of someone they loved.

She pulled up out the front of the Imperial, immediately noticing the 'closed' sign hanging from the door. Amy climbed out of her car and – without locking it, an old country habit she thought she'd forgotten – approached the door. She tried the handle and, finding it unlocked, invited herself inside without bothering to knock.

Chris Riley sat on the office side of the public bar, drowning her tears in a half-empty bottle of scotch. She barely even looked up as Amy entered and approached her tentatively.

"Chris?" she asked quietly, her voice eerily weak. Chris finally looked up and gasped in relief at the familiar face. She suddenly couldn't get over to Amy's side of the bar fast enough, pulling her into a rough hug. Under any other circumstances, Amy may have pulled away, but instead she found herself hugging Chris back, letting the redheaded publican sob into her shoulder, slowly and surely soaking her suit. Amy squeezed Chris slightly as the older woman finally pulled away, using the back of her hand to brush away tears.

"News travels fast." Chris whispered as she headed back round to the other side of the bar. She held up the remainder of scotch. "You want some?"

Amy nodded as she pulled up a stool across from Chris, watching as Chris retrieved another glass and poured Amy a drink. She took it gratefully, not even having to ask if this was 'on the house'.

"Kelly told me a little while ago." Chris explained in an unusually quiet voice. "Poor thing was in tears. She wanted to come over here but I told her not to."

Amy lowered her gaze as she let her glass of scotch hang from her index and middle fingers. A silence fell between Chris and Amy as they sat on either sides of the bar, staring into their drinks and silently praying that the last few hours had been little more than an unpleasant dream. Two normally strong women had been reduced to shadows of their former selves, drowning their sorrows in an empty, silent pub.

"How did you find out?" Chris asked in a whisper, looking up to Amy, the tears still fresh on her cheeks. Amy looked up to Chris, trying unsuccessfully to keep the tears back.

"A homicide colleague told me," she replied as she once again hung her head, letting her usually meticulously tidy hair fall around her face, hiding her features from view. "I'm here to find the bastard who did this."

Chris reached over and gave Amy's right arm a gentle squeeze. Amy looked up to meet Chris' gaze, and saw that she had the weakest of smiles spread across her face.

"Catch the bastard," Chris said quietly, "nail his arse to the wall and make him pay for what he did."

Amy nodded and gulped down the remainder of her glass of scotch.

"Don't worry," Amy pointed out, "we'll get him if it's the last thing we do. Is it alright if I grab a room?"

Chris quickly scampered back into the office and grabbed a set of keys. She tossed them over to Amy, who fumbled them briefly. "You can have room seven," Chris explained, "I think there was a visiting footy team in there last, so I'm not sure how good it is."

Amy smiled weakly at Chris and headed back out to her car to grab her bags. Chris watched the detective go, the smile gradually fading back into her previous saddened expression. Sitting back behind the bar, she looked at her half-empty glass and topped it up with what was left in the bottle, although something told her that the glass would always be half-empty in Mt. Thomas for some time to come.

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Amy unlocked the door to room seven at the Imperial Hotel and let herself in, surveying the small, somewhat stale-smelling room dismally. She sighed as she dumped her big black bag down on the hastily-made single bed and flopped down beside it, playing with the keys in her hands absentmindedly.

The room wasn't much. There was a heater that Amy knew she'd never use at this time of year, a TV that Chris couldn't remember if it worked or not and an old alarm clock from the 1990s that hadn't been updated to daylight savings yet. She rolled over onto her side to reach it and changed the time. It was probably still a good ten minutes off – like most motel and hotel room alarm clocks – but at least it now stood some chance of waking her up on time.

Amy climbed to her feet, using her hands to iron out the creases that had formed in her skirt after sitting down driving to Mt. Thomas for the last few hours. She moved over to an old mirror and checked herself over. She still looked reasonably okay, she supposed, for someone who had just learned of the death of an old friend and colleague. Her hair and makeup left a lot to be desired, but it'd do. She didn't imagine that the Mt. Thomas coppers would be fairing any better.

She went to unzip her bag, only to change her mind. Every minute she spent hiding in room seven was another minute that the case was cooling. Sooner or later she'd have to head over to the station and face her old colleagues, now grieving for the loss of one of their own. It was about time she joined them.

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Amy walked around to the back entrance of the Mt. Thomas police station, relieved to find it unlocked. Although she probably should have gone through the reception area, it just didn't feel natural. As long as she had been gone, the back entrance was still her doorway of choice.

She entered the code into the keypad, smiling to herself weakly as she realised that they hadn't changed it since she left, and opened the door, exposing the familiar corridors of her old station.

As she walked through the halls towards the muster room, she couldn't help but notice the silence that seemed to echo through the station. Even during the early mornings or late nights, Amy couldn't remember the station ever becoming this eerily quiet. It was like a part of the station's soul had disappeared, leaving an empty space.

She reached the doorway to the muster room and simply stood there silently, watching her old colleagues sit at their desks, each one looking more dismal and upset than the one before. Finally, the familiar blonde that was Kelly looked up and raced over to Amy, throwing her arms around Amy's neck. Amy stood there, quite taken aback by this gesture for some time, before finally relenting as she had earlier with Chris and hugging her back.

Amy closed her eyes and squeezed Kelly tightly, knowing that this must be hitting her the hardest. When they finally pulled away from each other, Amy could taste warm salty tears on her cheeks.

She turned to survey each of her old colleagues in turn – Mark, Alex, Susie, Joss and of course Kelly – before noticing a figure sitting at a messy desk in the CI office with his head in his hands. Amy gently pushed Kelly aside as she invited herself into the office and wrapped her arms around PJ's neck at the same moment he jumped to his feet and wrapped his arms around her waist. She let him hold her tightly, swaying her side to side as they stood in the CI office, the eyes of the uniforms fixed firmly upon them, but neither caring. Someone important was missing, they both knew that, and now nothing was ever going to be the same again.

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Amy sat on the corner of the lone desk in her old office, smiling appreciatively at PJ as he handed her a hot, steaming coffee. He sat beside her, just holding his in his hands, letting the heat run through his body. Amy took a mouthful of it, taking pleasure in the taste of a good old-fashioned coffee instead of the fancy, foreign stuff that seemed to fill every Homicide tea room.

"We still have to I.D. the body," PJ explained, his voice shaky and about to break at any second, "but there's no doubt." He paused, staring into his coffee mug as if it held the answers to his problems. Finally, he turned to Amy and shrugged, tears filling his eyes. "He was shot in his own home, Amy," he said weakly, "thirty-five years in the job and it all amounted to being gunned down in his own home."

Amy nodded sadly and met PJ's gaze. She remembered what Chris had told her.

"We'll catch the bastard," she began, "nail his arse to the wall and make him pay for what he did, even if it's the last thing we do." She reached over and rubbed PJ's hand gently on the coffee mug. He looked away, the slightest trace of a smile spreading across his face. "We'll put that low-life cop killer behind bars for the Boss," Amy smiled weakly, "and we'll keep on fighting for justice. For Tom Croydon."

PJ nodded to himself and met Amy's gaze weakly. "For Tom Croydon."


	2. Ep 1: After The Night Pt2

_Author's Note: I'm well aware of the fact that one scene in this part is very similar to an actual scene from Blue Heelers. That was never intentional and I didn't even release I had written it that way until several people told me._

**Part 2**

Amy stood in the living room of Tom Croydon's house, staring in disbelief at the patches of blood on the carpet where he had taken his final breaths. This was the place where their beloved Boss had lost his life, in his home, the one place where he should have felt safe. She wrapped her arms around her as PJ approached her. He rubbed her shoulder thoughtfully.

"This isn't right," Amy whispered quietly, "this shouldn't be how it ended."

PJ looked away from Amy and the blood stains and found himself noticing Tom and Grace's wedding photo. His gaze travelled to Jo. "Nothing ever ends how it should."

Amy nodded as she took the generic case folder from PJ and lifted out a photo envelope. PJ watched her as she opened it and looked at each crime scene picture, her expression becoming more and more dark as she went through.

PJ rubbed her arm gently as he took the photos from her frozen hands. Amy suddenly clasped her hands over her mouth and raced towards the open back door. PJ remained still for several seconds before sitting the case files on Tom's coffee table and racing out after Amy, finding her crouched on the back veranda, spilling the contents of that day's breakfast onto the unmowed lawn. He knelt down beside her and gently brushed strands of hair from her face and held out an old hankie to her. Amy smiled weakly as she took it.

"Thought I'd be alright," Amy whispered as she dried her face, "I didn't count on this…"

PJ rubbed her back gently as Amy sat the hankie down beside her. "You gonna be right with this case?" Amy looked up to him with a horrified expression.

"We'll find whoever killed our Boss, PJ. I won't rest easy until I do."

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Mark buried his head in his hands as the phone at his desk rang for the umpteenth time in the last five minutes alone. At their respective desks, the other uniforms looked up to their usually calm and composed sergeant, to find him looking like a wreck. After the fifth ring, Mark finally looked up to his younger charges.

"I'll give twenty-five dollars to whoever answers that bloody phone." Mark announced as he picked himself up and stormed off to the mess room. The slam of a locker door told them that Mark was not coping, which made him just like the rest of them at the moment.

After several more rings, Susie finally sighed and grabbed the phone, raising it to her right ear. "Hello, Mt. Thomas police station, Senior Constable Ray…oh, Mr. Timms…"

Alex, Kelly and Joss groaned together, each one suddenly pretending to be far too interested in work to possibly be able to answer the phone. Susie rolled her eyes and flopped down in Mark's chair, suddenly realising that the Boss wasn't all they'd lost.

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Amy returned to the living room of Tom's house, straightening her suit as she did so. She looked more of a mess than she had when she'd left the Imperial that morning, if that was at all possible. And now her breath probably smelt of vomit, just to top it all off.

PJ was sitting in Tom's old chair, massaging his temples. Amy approached him silently, just looking at him sadly. They were all hurting here.

Amy's mobile phone rang in her suit pocket, causing PJ to look up in shock. She grabbed for it quickly, answering it in her usual manner. "Fox…oh, thanks…yeah, we're on our way back to the station now…thanks again…"

As Amy hung up the phone, PJ stared at her intently. She looked down to him.

"They've finished the preliminary autopsy. They've just faxed it through to the station."

PJ reluctantly dragged himself out of Tom's old chair and headed back out the front to where the CI car was parked. "Let's go, then."

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Susie glanced up from her phone call with Tony Timms, a pained expression on her face as Amy and PJ returned to the station, snatching up the preliminary autopsy results from the fax machine as they passed. Amy noted that Mark had disappeared sometime during their absence, perhaps to let off some steam. As it was, she was surprised that the rest of the uniforms seemed to be taking it so well. Kelly, Joss and Alex were sitting at their desks in silence, all with silent tears streaming down their faces. It was a picture of despair.

"What do we have?" PJ asked as Amy entered the CI office, closing the door softly behind her. She quickly skimmed through the fax before relinquishing it to PJ.

"Time of death was probably about three a.m. this morning. He was shot twice in the chest, one shot hit his lung, he suffocated when his lung filled with blood…" Amy trailed off, looking down and away from PJ. He read and re-read the preliminary autopsy report several times before finally sitting it down on his messy desk and flopping back into his seat, letting his head fall into his hands.

"Bloody hell," PJ mumbled under his breath and Amy nodded, turning away to survey the sad sight that was the uniform deployment.

"Bloody hell is right," she whispered quietly as she combed her hair back from her face with her fingers and closed her eyes, desperately wishing, as she had ever since she'd heard the news, that this was all some terrible nightmare and she'd wake up soon.

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Mark paced the mess room, running his right hand back through his hair before lashing out and striking the open door of his locker. The sound echoed through the quiet station, to the point where he was sure he could hear his younger charges jump. He didn't understand what was happening anymore. He was the sergeant; he was meant to be the cool, calm and collected one, not the one storming around and punching locker doors. His colleagues needed their friendly, relaxed Mark Jacobs right now, not this wreck.

Not to mention that Inspector Falcon-Price would probably be arriving any day now. Normally, he didn't mind having the inspector around, he was a pretty good guy to him at least, but today was not the day. This was just a nightmare for all of them.

And, just remembering who was probably going to be appointed Acting Senior Sergeant, Mark lashed out at the locked door again, this time skinning his knuckles as he did so.

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Amy sat back at PJ's desk, reading the official autopsy results. It seemed that everything to do with this case was being fast-tracked because of Tom's long service to the Victoria Police. As the investigating officer, and as an old friend, this made Amy extremely grateful.

As she read the results, something finally struck her with all the force of a speeding train. She clicked her fingers, quietly signalling PJ to come over. He finally left his post at the window into the muster room and bent down behind her shoulder.

"Look at this," Amy said, pointing her finger at the words on the page, "The Boss was murdered with a police issue revolver…" She looked up to PJ, who ran his hand back across his head with a barely audible moan. "You know…when I was down in Melbourne, there was some case that a mate of mine in Organised Crime was investigating, apparently some revolvers were knocked off at St. Kilda..."

"…Maybe one of them's found their way to Mt. Thomas…" PJ added, catching Amy's line of thought perfectly. She looked up to him, her eyes shining the way they did whenever she was finally able to forge a lead in a case.

"…And into some little criminal's hands…"

"…A criminal with a grudge against the Boss." PJ finally finished, nodding as Amy turned back to his desk and snatched up the phone. She dialled a Melbourne number quickly as she sat forward, resting her elbows on his desk.

"Let's see what else that mate of mine can give me," Amy said as her contact on the other end of the phone picked up. PJ found himself smiling ever so slightly as he backed away until he was leaning against the wall behind Amy. Homicide had found quite a catch in Amy Fox. It was just a shame that he was the reason Mt. Thomas had lost her.

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Mark finally returned from the mess room, a bandage wrapped tightly around his left hand. The uniforms all looked up in unison at him while CI carried on with some sort of discussion in their office.

Alex eyed the bandage. "What happened, Sarge?"

Mark tried to conceal his hand at his side as best he could as he headed for Tom's office, much to the horror of the others. "Never you mind…now, we need to get the Boss' office tidied up before the inspector arrives and appoints the Acting Senior Sergeant…"

Kelly's face filled with horror at this. She jumped to her feet, sending her chair sprawling. This gesture caused Alex, Susie and Joss to all stare at her as she stood there, her mouth hanging agape.

"You can't do that!" Kelly cried, outraged. "The Boss hasn't been gone half a day and you're already clearing him out!"

Susie bit her bottom lip nervously as she reached over and gave Kelly's arm a friendly rub. "Kel…" she soothed, but she went ignored. Kelly continued to glare at Mark.

"He's our Boss and we'll clean it out when we're ready, not when you say so!" Kelly snapped, pulling herself free of Susie's arm.

Mark turned to face her with saddened eyes. "Kelly, we have to keep working…"

Kelly grabbed Mark's wrist as he made to open the door to Tom's office, stopping him in his tracks.

"Kel…"

"No!" Kelly cried, tears streaming down her cheeks, fresh as they were the moment she'd found out that morning that her life-long mentor and hero was gone. "You're not Tom Croydon and you never will be so stop pretending you are!"

Kelly turned and stormed away from her colleagues, despite their calls to return. Joss climbed hastily to his feet and jumped over Kelly's chair as he raced after her to the mess room, closing the door behind him. Susie and Alex shared a look before looking to Mark with a 'what have you done' expression on their faces.

Mark turned away and rose his hands to his face, massaging his weary eyes. It was barely noon and already he felt like a zombie.

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Kelly turned to face Joss, her eyes desperate and her face wet with tears. He tried to approach her, but she batted him away.

"This is unacceptable!" Kelly snapped, her voice attaining a strange, distressed quality that Joss had only heard once before when her best friend had died. "The Boss is dead!"

Joss nodded and looked away, folding his arms across his chest for a lack of anything else to do. Kelly just looked away to Tom's locker. The sight of his name sent a painful pang through her heart.

"Uncle Tom is dead," Kelly said, her voice now barely louder than a whisper, "and already Mark is acting like nothing's happened."

Joss moved towards Kelly again, but once again failed. She gave a loud sob as she kicked the nearest chair as hard as she could, sending it skidding across the room. Sobbing desperately, Kelly perched herself on the edge of the table, trying to hide her face from view with her left hand. After several seconds of uncertain silence, Joss approached her, gently wrapping his arms around her and holding her close. Kelly continued to sob, but this time into the shoulder of his shirt, slowly soaking through to his skin.

Joss just closed his eyes as he gently rocked the sobbing Kelly side to side in his arms. "Shush, Kel," he whispered quietly, "it'll be alright. I'm here."

Kelly clung to Joss' shirt as she sobbed desperately, not quite taking in anything he said, but just knowing that she had to cry. And Joss was as good a person as anyone.


	3. Ep 1: After The Night Pt3

**Part 3**

PJ returned to the CI office from the mess room, to find Amy hanging up the phone on his desk, checking over the notes she had made during the call, a blue pen being twiddled absentmindedly between her fingers.

"Was this mate of your's able to give you anything?" PJ asked as he leant against the door out into the muster room, where Kelly was having a less than friendly conversation with Mark.

Amy nodded and pushed the notepad across the desk to PJ. He stepped forward to grab it and returned to his post at the door as he read over them.

"Serial numbers," PJ observed quietly, "so…"

Amy lowered her head and massaged her temples. "…if we can find the gun that killed the Boss, then we'll have a chance of solving two crimes."

PJ approached her, giving her shoulder a gentle massage. Amy smiled weakly, closing her eyes.

"Guns don't kill people, Amy," he pointed out, "people do. It wasn't a gun that killed the Boss, it was the little bastard on the end of it, he's the one who's responsible."

Amy looked up to PJ, nodding as he gave her shoulder a final squeeze before motioning to the phone. She drew in a shaky breath and grabbed the handset, once again dialling her Organised Crime contact.

"I'll get him to fax over some photos, maybe that'll help," she said, the slightest hint of hope in her voice as she held the phone to her ear while PJ watched on, his mind drifting to where they'll go from here, in both the case and their lives.

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Susie finally returned to her own desk after finally managing to fob Tony Timms off onto Media Liaison, only to find her email alert beeping like crazy. She heaved a heavy sigh as she sat down and opened it up, only to find at least thirty emails from Jonesy sitting expectantly in her inbox, each message's subject sounding more impatient than the last. It seemed that the news of Tom's death had hit the big smoke already.

She rolled her eyes as she quickly checked through the first five before deleting the lot. If Jonesy wanted information, then he could get it himself.

"Bastard," Susie mumbled under her breath as she let her forehead rest against her desk, the action causing Alex to look up at her with a saddened expression on his face.

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Kelly finally broke apart from Joss, using the back of her hand to brush tears away, though it seemed to be like trying to mow a lawn with a pair of nail scissors.

He gently rubbed her back as Kelly sobbed quietly into her hand. He couldn't blame her for reacting the way she was. After all, Tom had been just as much a father to her as her own, not to mention a friend, colleague and mentor.

"This isn't fair," Kelly whispered, her voice strained and barely audible, "he shouldn't be dead. Uncle Tom should still be alive, playing with his grandkids and going off at you!"

Joss looked away momentarily, nodding to himself. Kelly was right. All Tom Croydon had ever done was help people, if there was anything he had done wrong in his life, it was care too much about the people he loved and the colleagues that were like his own kids.

"You…gonna be okay?" Joss queried, knowing instantly that it was a stupid question. Kelly looked up at him pointedly. No, she was not going to be 'okay' any time soon. It was little more than a month out from Christmas and Tom was gone.

But Kelly still nodded silently, closing her eyes and trying to keep her breathing in check. She forced a smile for his sake as she gently pushed past him, heading out to the muster room, probably to apologise. Or else go off at Mark again.

Either way, there was little Joss could do except watch in sadness and Kelly left him standing alone in the mess room, finally realising that life would never be the same again.

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Amy leant against the wall beside the fax machine, staring impatiently at it as if it may suddenly spring into life with some new results from Forensics or her mate in Organised Crime.

"Amy!" She spun at the sound of her name, to find PJ standing in the doorway to their – no, his, she reminded herself sharply – office, motioning to her with his hand. She followed him inside and looked down to the laptop sitting open on his desk with several black and white CCTV images onscreen. "Looks like your mate in Organised Crime came good again," PJ said.

Amy rose her eyebrows in surprise at the pictures as she sat in PJ's seat and scrolled through the email. "I thought he'd fax them through," she said, more to herself than to PJ, "last time I checked, he was computer illiterate."

They stared at the photos in silence, before suddenly PJ thrust a finger at a pale face onscreen.

"I know who that guy is," he pointed out, his voice teeming with surprise, "and he's got a criminal record as long as you could dream of."

PJ grabbed the mouse from Amy's grip and quickly navigated through to LEAP. Amy watched him as he typed in 'Joseph Kenny' and pressed enter. Her eyes widened in shock as she stared at the long list of charges onscreen.

"Oh my God…" Amy whispered to herself. PJ looked at her expectantly for several seconds, thinking she would make another comment, but instead she remained silent.

"We first came into contact with Joe Kenny in 1995, when he was involved in several robberies and organised an attack on a local police officer who was involved with his wife." PJ explained, his mind drifting back as Amy just stared at him blankly in shock. "Early the next year, he escaped from prison and held the same member and a young boy hostage. They both got away relatively uninjured, but the officer was killed later that day when he was hit by a car."

PJ turned away from Amy, causing her to jump slightly. He approached the window out into the muster room and watched his uniformed colleagues absentmindedly. Amy could only watch him as he continued with what was no doubt a difficult topic.

"Constable Wayne Patterson was just like anyone out there – a good copper who should have had his whole life ahead of him. His divorce was about to come through, he had found the girl of his dreams and her kids adored him…he'd just gotten out of the downward spiral after his marriage breakdown." PJ finally turned back to face Amy, his eyes brimming with tears. "Joe Kenny may not have been driving that car, but he is just as responsible for how Wayne died. He's still a cop killer."

Amy nodded understandably as she picked herself up and approached PJ. She reached into her pocket and pulled out something PJ hadn't seen since her second-last night in Mt. Thomas nearly two and a half years ago – the fishy hankie she had used to dry her tears.

PJ took it in surprise and held it to his nose. The slightest of smiles played on his lips. "It still smells like that tuna sandwich," he observed quietly. Amy nodded as she met his eyes cautiously. But when green eyes met blue, she could only look away. PJ watched her as she turned and headed back to the laptop silently, his mind drifting from her second-last night in Mt. Thomas to her last.

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PJ stormed up to the doorway of the Kenny house, through the toys and tricycles lying forgotten in the front yard as Amy jogged along behind. It was a bit of a consolation to him that the place looked better now than it had nearly four years before under Lucy Kenny. Now Ditch was in charge, presumedly, with baby Tarkyn. He'd nearly be starting school now, PJ realised.

He gave the door a loud rap, while Amy looked around in curiosity. She had never been out anywhere near the Kenny property before. The last that the police had seen of the Kenny and Darcy clan was about six months before she arrived in town and although she had heard rumours, that was all she knew about them.

A voice PJ had long forgotten called out from somewhere within the house.

"Piss off, Joe!"

PJ looked back to Amy with a slight smile on his face. Some people just made it too easy. "Ditch, open up, it's the police."

The door creaked open and Ditch Kenny's face appeared in the crack, a young boy wearing an old Superman costume trying desperately to see from behind his legs.

"Hasham," he mumbled, rolling his eyes as he cursed under his breath, "what the hell do you want? I haven't done nothing wrong, I swear."

Ditch went to slam the door shut, but PJ stuck his foot in the gap just in time. Ditch mumbled something probably highly offensive had Amy or PJ heard it and grabbed Tarkyn from the floor behind him.

"If we're gonna do this, can we do it at the station?" Ditch asked, Tarkyn watching on in confusion from his arms. PJ looked at the young boy, letting his mind drift back to the baby that he had told Ditch to bring up properly that night all those years ago.

"If that's what you'd like, sir," Amy replied as she tried to lead Ditch out towards the CI car, but he pulled away.

"I'll be right, thanks," he mumbled, storming off towards it as PJ drew level with her.

"Told you this family's a nut job," PJ said as he followed Ditch to the car, leaving Amy standing alone in the front yard, her mind whirring as it struggled to put everything to do with this case into place.


	4. Ep 1: After The Night Pt4

**Part 4**

Amy and PJ sat opposite Ditch Kenny in the interview room, while he nursed Tarkyn on his knees. Tarkyn was a cute little kid, constantly asking about PJ and Amy's guns and about the job. Amy noticed how PJ and Ditch seemed uneasy about Tarkyn's questions, especially those referring to guns. She'd heard about the incident in which PJ had been forced to shoot Raelene Darcy, it was just one of those things that had spread through the force like wildfire. She had only been a young Constable, probably not even off probation at the time, but it still stuck out.

"Look, I don't get what you want from me," Ditch moaned as PJ leant across the desk. "I've been on the straight and narrow since Kayla was arrested; I've been doing what you told me to."

Amy looked from PJ to Ditch and back again in confusion. While the shooting of Raelene Darcy was legend, PJ's other dealings with the Darcys and the Kennys weren't so.

"When is Kayla getting out?" PJ queried, his voice suddenly softer. Amy narrowed her eyes as she surveyed PJ coolly, the cogs of her mind going at top speed.

Ditch shuffled Tarkyn on his lap, who was now getting quite impatient. Under normal circumstances, Tarkyn would have been long fobbed off onto Kelly or Joss for babysitting duty. But today was no normal day.

"She's coming up for parole soon," Ditch explained, "she's been behaving herself inside. We all want her home with us."

PJ nodded and a sideways glance at Amy sternly reminded him of what their actual topic of discussion was meant to be. "When we knocked on the door, you said 'piss off, Joe'. Did you mean Joe Kenny?"

Ditch sat back, giving a roll of his eyes. "This is a waste of time…"

PJ suddenly jumped to his feet, ignoring Amy's cries to sit down again. Ditch sat Tarkyn down on the ground just in time to save him from behind pushed up against the wall behind him.

"Listen to me, mate," PJ spat, "Tom Croydon has been killed by a police revolver and the only ones unaccounted anywhere near here are from a robbery Joe was sighted at, so you'd better start talking soon."

Amy jumped to her feet, whisking Tarkyn into her arms as she raced over. She glared at the two men. "That will be quite enough, Senior Detective."

"You think I'm stupid enough to tell you about where Joe is?" Ditch demanded. "You know how he kidnapped that cop years ago and had him bashed! I know you still remember!"

PJ nodded, relinquishing his grip slightly.

"He's been hanging around lately," Ditch relented, his good side winning over somewhat. "Keeps bugging us, saying that he doesn't have anywhere else in the world to go. Kate divorced him, you know. I try telling him that I'm not interested, that I've got a kid now, but he doesn't listen. I'm scared he'll hurt Tarkyn…"

PJ pulled away, giving Amy the opportunity to hand the obvious distressed Tarkyn back to his father, who smiled at her weakly. She placed a hand on PJ's shoulder and nodded to the door.

"I think we need to talk, PJ." Amy said simply and PJ nodded in agreement.

--------------------------------------

Amy closed the door to the interview room behind her and turned to look at PJ expectantly. "Want to tell me what the hell was going on in there?"

PJ paced anxiously, running his hand back across his head. Finally, he stopped to fix Amy with his seemingly permanent sad expression – or permanent for today, anyway. "Look, I go way back with the Darcys and Kennys..."

"Who's Kayla?" Amy interrupted, folding her arms across her chest.

"Kayla is Ditch's cousin and the daughter of the woman I shot." PJ paused, lowering his gaze as he remembered that day well over eleven years ago. "She's Tarkyn's mother and the sister of Luke Darcy – let's not even start on him."

Amy's mouth dropped open. "Hang on," she said, her eyes widening, "if she's Ditch's cousin and Tarkyn's mother…"

PJ nodded and patted Amy's shoulder thoughtfully as he headed back into the interview room. "If you think Kayla and Ditch are bad, then you've obviously never met Luke and Joe."

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Amy and PJ sat in the CI office, PJ on his chair and Amy perched on the corner of his desk, neither knowing exactly what to say. They both desperately wished that Tom Croydon was still sitting in his office opposite so they could go have a chat with him and bounce ideas off each other just like they used to do. But they couldn't do that. They'd never be able to do that again.

"So," Amy finally began, breaking the deafening silence, "you've identified Joe Kenny as one of the figures from the St. Kilda robbery."

PJ looked up from his desk, lowering his hands from his temples as Amy continued.

"And Ditch Kenny has claimed that he's in town trying to hide out at the Kenny property…" Amy looked to PJ, biting her lip absentmindedly, hoping that he had once again caught onto her line of thought. Judging by the glint in his eyes, he certainly had.

"So, logic says he'll be back again soon." PJ added as he climbed to his feet. "So, we'll be there when he does."

Amy watched with a weak smile on her face as PJ headed out into the muster room.

"I think it's stakeout time," she declared as she followed him.

--------------------------------------

PJ and Amy turned around to look into the backseat of the CI car, watching Ditch Kenny stare in disgust at the wire taped to his stomach.

"You know the plan," PJ said, "just don't let Joe in, whatever you do. As soon as we hear or see him, we'll come running, got it?"

Ditch gave an annoyed nod as he pulled down his old shirt. "Yeah, yeah, I get the picture."

Amy began to bite her bottom lip the same way she always did when she was nervous. "And don't tell him anything about Tarkyn, alright? He'll be safe back at the station. Back up's not far away. And if Joe pulls a gun, get out of the way."

Ditch nodded impatiently as he climbed out of the car, slamming the door on his way out. He stormed back inside the house, closing the door and probably locking it too.

PJ sat back in his seat and looked over to Amy. "I suppose when you're nervous you at least know you're alive."

Amy didn't respond to this, and instead kept her gaze fixed squarely on the house as PJ drove off to a spot hidden by trees and scrub with what was very limited view of the house. If Joe showed up, then they'd hear him before they saw him for sure.

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Susie sat beside Alex in the patrol car situated about a hundred metres further from the Kenny property than Amy and PJ, gazing out the passenger side window aimlessly. A thick wall of bushland and a shed was blocking the house from view.

Alex kept his head down, stuffing a Mintie in his mouth and proceeding to tear the wrapper into a long chain. Susie looked over to him, raising an eyebrow. "Where's mine?"

He looked up in surprise, forcing a bitter laugh as he shrugged.

"Last one," he said glumly, "sorry."

"Forget it," Susie mumbled as she looked away and narrowed her eyes as if it might somehow help her see through the trees. "I didn't really want one anyway."

Alex sighed as he crumpled the Mintie chain in his hand and tossed it out the car window, ignoring the frown from Susie's side of the car. He drummed his fingers on the dashboard before finally daring to meet her eyes.

"You know Falcon-Price will probably appoint Mark to Acting Senior Sergeant," he probed gently. Susie didn't respond to this, instead choosing to keep her gaze fixed out amongst the trees. Alex sighed again, this time louder, finally causing Susie to look at him. "And that means one of us will be Acting Sergeant."

Susie nodded thoughtfully, looking away from Alex's eyes. He tried – and near failed – to keep his expression cool and calm. "I don't want to be Acting Sergeant."

"Technically it should be your job," Susie pointed out coolly, "you outrank me, remember."

Alex leant across the car to Susie, his Mintie breath causing her to recoil slightly.

"But I don't want the job," he repeated, "I just want you to know that I'm not interested. It's your's."

Susie gave a false laugh as she looked away, again trying to focus beyond the trees. "Yeah, well, last time I checked, it was Rusty's job to pick Acting Sarge, not your's."

Alex gave an understanding nod and sat back in his seat, realising that he wasn't going to get anymore out of Susie on the topic of promotions. He looked away from her, eyeing off a crow that was picking at his abandoned Mintie wrapper.

Well, this would certainly be an interesting couple of months ahead, to put it lightly.

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PJ sat forward in the driver's seat of the CI car, listening intently as suddenly a loud knock could be heard from the wire Ditch Kenny was wearing. He reached over and shook Amy's shoulder, stirring her awake from her afternoon nap.

"I was just resting my eyes!" Amy protested automatically as she awoke, only to be promptly silenced by PJ.

A loud voice could be heard over the radio. "I know you're there, Ditch!"

PJ looked over to Amy, who fixed him with a puzzled stare. "Joe Kenny," he explained quietly, his voice getting lost in his throat. He turned to look at the radio again, grabbing for his gun as he did so.

"Piss off, Joe!" Ditch called from inside the house, "I'm not interested!"

"I think you will be," Joe said, followed closely by the sound of a gunshot.

PJ and Amy suddenly leapt into action, hurriedly pulling on vests and pulling out their guns. As they raced for the Kenny house, Amy spoke in hushed tones over the radio to Susie and Alex. "Mt. Thomas 509 to Mt. Thomas 208, we've had shots fired."

Joe spun to face PJ and Amy as they burst out from the cover of the trees, guns drawn and trained on his chest.

"Police, don't move!" PJ hollered. "Put the gun down, Kenny, and keep your hands where I can see them!"

Joe struggled to keep his gun focused on both Amy and PJ. Amy tightened her grip. "Don't even try it, you bastard!"

Ditch peered around the door, his eyes wide. He had seen coppers with guns drawn before, but never this angry. Never with that glint in their eyes.

"Police, don't move!" Susie and Alex called out as they emerged from behind the Kenny house. Joe spun, his face contorting into an expression of twisted anger as he tried to focus on all four guns at once. Finally, he gave a grunt of anger and tossed his revolver to the ground, raising his arms in surrender.

Amy leapt forward, grabbing the gun from where it had been abandoned, while PJ and Alex tackled Joe to the ground, roughly pulling his arms around behind his back so that Susie was surprised that they hadn't broken as she watched on.

"You're gone, Kenny," PJ spat harshly as he dragged Joe to his feet, "you're never going to get out this time."


	5. Ep 1: After The Night Pt5

**Part 5**

_**Lyrics in this part come from "Bitter End" by the Dixie Chicks.**_

Amy sat back in her chair in the interview room, the late afternoon sun trickling in through the window. PJ stood behind her, leaning against the dark green wall, his arms folded across his chest. Without even looking at him, Amy could tell that he was tired. They all were. It had been a long day.

Joe Kenny sat opposite them, lying through his teeth.

Amy let her head hang to one side slightly as she surveyed Joe Kenny through weary eyes. "Look, we don't need a confession to have you put away for a long time. We've got you sighted at the gun theft from St. Kilda and the gun has been connected to the bullet that killed Senior Sergeant Croydon. Either way you look at it, you're gone."

Joe looked from Amy to PJ through cold eyes. PJ finally pulled out the chair beside Amy and sat down, massaging his temples with his right hand.

"I don't even know what to say anymore," PJ said, his voice weary and devoid of emotion, "we try everything to make you guys see reason and you never do. Robbery to murdering a cop in his own home, it's all the same to you. We've lost our Boss and it's because you killed him."

Joe jumped to his feet in indignation. "I never killed anyone!" he snapped. "You can't prove I was ever there!"

Amy narrowed her eyes impatiently. "Your DNA has put you there, Kenny," she explained glumly. "Some of your skin cells were under his nails and we found your fingerprint on a window. Whether you confess or you continue lying to us, you're gone."

Joe gave a loud, unremorseful cackle. That was the final straw for PJ. He suddenly leapt to life, grabbing Joe around the neck and shoving him up against the wall behind him, his grip slowly tightening. Unlike with Ditch Kenny, however, Amy was reluctant to stop him.

PJ shoved Joe harder against the wall. "How does it feel now, Kenny?" he asked coldly. "Then again, killing coppers is nothing to do. You killed Wayne Patterson and you killed Tom Croydon!"

Amy looked at him warningly. "Peej," she mumbled.

"Our Boss is dead!" PJ managed as he slowly relinquished his grip on Joe. His voice still seemed strong, but his eyes told the real story. They were filled with hot tears that were ready to spill over at any moment. "You broke into his house, trashed the place and then shot him in the chest with a police gun. You killed him just as he started to cope with his new life."

Amy glanced up at PJ, her eyes narrow. "There's no justice in the world for cop-killers. But you'd already know about that."

Joe shot Amy a death glare before turning back to PJ.

"Tom Croydon should have had a good old age ahead of him," PJ explained, his voice finally faltering, "he had two daughters he should have had a chance to reunite with, two grandkids he should have gotten the chance to know and several years left in a job that was his life. You robbed him of that and you robbed us of him."

"You ruined my family," Joe pointed out, his voice bitter. "You're the reason Kate left, the reason Ditch won't speak to me, the reason Luke and Raelene are dead and Kayla is in prison."

"No, we're not the reason you're family is stuffed," PJ replied coldly, "you are. We're the reason Ditch and Kayla have a future with their son. Everything else with your family is all you lot self-destructing. You just keep taking people out along with you."

PJ had to pause to wipe away a tear at this point; something didn't go unnoticed by Amy. She watched him with tears of her own building in her eyes.

"Tom Croydon is…" PJ stopped, suddenly realising what he had just said, "was…one of the greatest coppers this country has ever seen. He was a mentor, a friend and a father figure to everyone in this station. We're all going to miss him."

Joe lowered his gaze and slowly sat down opposite Amy again, suddenly very subdued. PJ headed over to the tape recorder, his hand hovering over the stop button.

"I hardly see the point in prolonging this," he pointed out, earning a nod from Amy. He leant closer to the speaker. "Joseph Kenny, you are being charged with the theft of police property, use of an illegal firearm, breaking and entering into a private residence, assault with a deadly weapon, affray and murder of a police officer." PJ hit the red button with his left hand and surveyed Joe Kenny through steely eyes. "And if we can think of anything else, believe me; we'll add it to the list. Some bastards never learn," he declared, before walking out, his angry footsteps echoing through the station.

Amy climbed to her feet, gathered her notes together on her clipboard and walked out into the corridor where Susie was standing by the door, apparently eavesdropping.

"Get him out of my sight before I do something really stupid," Amy mumbled bitterly as she stormed away to the CI office, her head lowered and hair fluttering behind her.

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Amy paused as she stood in the doorway to the CI office, watching as PJ stood with his back to her, his gaze fixed somewhere amongst the fading sunlight coming in through the window. She rose a hand to the doorframe.

"PJ?" she asked quietly, her voice uncertain and somewhat weak. He spun to face her, his eyes filled with silent tears. "Peej?" Amy whispered as she walked over. She gently reached up, brushing away one of his tears. PJ closed his eyes and sobbed quietly.

"He's gone, Amy," PJ managed in between sobs, "the only person I could ever really count on is gone. Tom Croydon is dead."

Amy looked away, nodding with understanding. She stuffed her hands in the pockets of her black coat, biting her bottom lip absentmindedly. "Yeah," she admitted in a barely audible voice.

"Where do we go now?" PJ asked as he let his arms fall to his sides. "What happens to the station now? To our jobs? Our lives?"

Amy opened her mouth to answer with whatever weak explanation came to her first, when the door into the muster room opened and Joss peered in.

"PJ," he said, looking in curiosity at the two figures standing by the window, bathed in the last remaining hour of sunlight, their shoulders hunched and eyes weary. "We're having a drink down at the pub in a few hours. You wanna come?"

PJ nodded weakly as he gave Amy's arm a fond rub and left, probably to clean himself up in the mess room before heading home to change. She stood alone in the CI office that she had once called her own, looking around sadly, realising that so little had changed about the town she had once called home.

Even in the few hours she'd been in town, she had settled back in to the point that she couldn't bear the thought of leaving all of her old friends and colleagues for the big smoke she had come to hate and a job that left her drained and empty each night.

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Amy lay back on her bed in room seven at the Imperial Hotel, still wearing the black pants suit she had worn since six a.m. that morning. She tried to sink back into the hotel pillows with the magazine she'd bought from a newsagent yesterday, but it was difficult when familiar, mournful voices kept echoing from the public bar downstairs and into her mind.

It was all she could do not to head downstairs and join them in their fond remembering of a man who had touched them all. It took all of her strength to remind herself that she was no longer one of them. She was a Homicide detective now, not a member of Mt. Thomas CI. She had to keep herself apart from the situation that her old colleagues would face come the morning. While they struggled with a new Senior Sergeant and their old father figure gone, she would be back in Melbourne, working on a new case alongside people she had grown to hate.

It was all too much. Amy closed the magazine and tossed in onto the bedside table as she slipped on her boots and headed downstairs quietly, finally stopping to watch her old friends standing in a circle in the public bar, each with a glass of scotch in their hand, each with tears of remembrance in their eyes.

_Farewell to old friends_

_Let's raise a glass to the bitter end_

She felt like she should be standing over there with them. It had been two and a half years since she'd left, but she couldn't quell the urge to join the circle of coppers and Chris.

She'd never felt like that when she'd first arrived – in typical Amy Fox fashion, she had felt that she needed to prove herself. This desire was only further fuelled by the near oblivious nature that PJ, Tom, Nick and some of the younger uniforms had shown towards her. So she'd fought on to get their attention, and it had worked – they all came to respect her. Not everyone had treated her that way. Ben had treated her nicely enough, and so had Mark, Kelly and Joss, but then again, they were new as well. Yet, just as soon as she had attained the full respect, admiration and acceptance that she had so yearned for, she had pulled up roots for Homicide. The worst decision she'd ever made.

Chris had just finished telling a story about her childhood crush on Tom when PJ rose his glass in Amy's direction, causing them all to turn and stare at her standing in the doorway, looking on longingly.

"Come over and grab a drink," PJ offered, holding up the near-empty bottle sitting on the bar, "there's enough left for one more."

Amy went to refuse – leaving was going to be difficult enough as it was, without having this night on her conscience – but eventually the tears in her eyes got the better of her and she walked over to slip in beside PJ and Susie in the circle as Chris poured her what was left of the scotch.

Silence fell over the group as they stood there, each one with their heads lowered and gazes fixed to the floor. Chris finally rose her glass, causing the coppers to look up in surprise.

"To Amy and PJ," she announced, causing the pair to share an odd glance at each other, "for making Mt. Thomas a little bit safer for coppers and for finding justice for us all."

Mark nodded at this, raising his glass from where he stood beside Chris. "To Amy and PJ."

The younger uniforms looked to one another, nodding as they all silently agreed. "To Amy and PJ."

"To Tom," Amy said, causing everyone to once again turn and stare, "for giving us all a good lesson in mateship, investigation and the importance of sticking together."

"Not to mention country policing," PJ added with a smile on his face. "Out here, policing is about people."

Kelly nodded, raising her glass. "I'll drink to that."

"To Tom Croydon," the group declared as they each gulped down the remains of their glasses. Except for Amy, who still had quite a bit left. As everyone said their goodbyes, Amy moved over to the bar, leaning against it as she slowly finished her drink. PJ noticed Amy's dismal appearance and approached her.

"You gonna be alright?" he asked quietly as he leant side-on against the bar. She turned to look at him, forcing a weak smile.

Amy nodded glumly. "Yeah, I'll be right," she said weakly, "just thinking about what's going to happen to this town once I leave tomorrow."

PJ's demeanour seemed to be instantly downtrodden as he looked away, nodding to himself. Amy focused back to the bar and her near-empty glass of scotch, sighing sadly to herself. Finally, PJ patted her on the back and walked away.

"See you around sometime, then," he said as he walked out of the bar and into the darkened night, not even brave enough to look at her one last time. Amy watched him leave with a red and blotchy face, knowing that neither of them wanted her to leave.

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Amy lugged her black bag over her shoulder as she approached the bar of the Imperial Hotel early the next morning, her cheeks still stained from tears and large bags under her eyes. Chris walked over to meet her from where she had no doubt been hiding in the office, looking no better than Amy.

"I guess this is it then," Amy said quietly as Chris came out to her side of the bar. The redhead suddenly pulled Amy into a hug that came very close to crushing a few ribs, Amy was sure. Amy hugged Chris back, certain that the tears she had spent the best part of the last six hours trying to hold back were flowing again.

Chris broke apart, looking Amy up and down with a sad glint in her eyes. "You'll be down for the funeral, won't you?"

Amy nodded as she gave Chris' shoulder a squeeze. "Of course. And the trial. Mt. Thomas hasn't seen the last of me."

"I'm sure PJ will give you a ring when a date's been set," Chris explained as she followed Amy to the door, "oh God, Amy, do you have to go now?"

Amy lowered her gaze as she stood at the doorway to the Imperial Hotel as Chris seemed to be about to break down at the thought of another person leaving so soon after Tom's death. Instead of answering Chris' question, however, Amy decided it would just be easier to get out of there. "Here's the keys to room seven…the TV doesn't work and the alarm clock's fifteen minutes off." Amy gave Chris a weak smile. "Well, bye."

With that, Amy kept her head lowered as she walked out of there as fast as she could, knowing full well that she couldn't bear to stay any longer.

--------------------------------------

Amy tossed her bag into the boot of her Vee Dub, letting the warm early morning breeze and orange sunset bathe over her. It was quiet in Mt. Thomas. In Melbourne, traffic would be going past her flat constantly. For the first month after she joined Homicide, she operated on no sleep before eventually, she found that the blare of horns and engines didn't bother her anymore. She could no longer be bothered to question why people were rushing places at three in the morning, in the same way she could no longer be bothered to speak out against the corruption and law-breaking she saw amongst her colleagues everyday. Two and a half years in Homicide had nearly crushed all of the strength and spirit she had spent a lifetime building up.

"You leaving?"

She spun to see PJ standing just metres away, the engine of his car still humming softly. Amy smiled sadly as she pushed hair back from her eyes, exposing yet another dint in the armour that she usually hid behind.

"Yeah," she mumbled quietly, "gotta get back to Melbourne."

"Do you?" PJ asked as he approached her slowly, each step towards her sending a pang through Amy's heart. "Do you really have to leave? Do you really want to leave?"

Amy didn't look away. Instead she gave her head a weak shake. "No."

PJ fixed her with puppy dog eyes. "Then stay. Stay in Mt. Thomas with us. The next few months are going to be really tough. We're going to need you around…I'm going to need you around."

Amy tried to open her mouth and argue the reasons why she should leave, but nothing seemed to come to mind. When she'd first joined Homicide, she'd been able to come up with a million reasons why leaving Mt. Thomas was the right thing to do. Now, she struggled to find just one.

PJ drew closer, so close that Amy was sure she could taste the corn flakes and toast he'd eaten for breakfast. "Stay," he told her gently, "don't leave because of me again."

Amy found a weak smile spreading over her lips as she nodded gently.

"I'll stay," she whispered, "I'll stay on in Mt. Thomas…for a little while anyway."

PJ beamed from ear to ear as he gave her shoulder a rub. "I think you've made the right choice, Amy," he said as he drew away slightly. "I'll see you at the station then, shall I?"

Amy nodded as she grabbed her bag from the boot of her car and slammed it shut. "Yeah, you will."

She stood there, unable to hold back the smile as PJ turned and headed back to his car, probably to return home and resume preparing for work. PJ was right, she had made the right decision. Because, for the first time since she'd left, she could actually feel her heart beat just a little faster when she thought about heading into work that morning.


	6. Ep 2: Our Way Pt1

**Episode 2: "Our Way"**

**Summary: **_The Heelers finally face Tom's funeral, only to be forced to investigate allegations of corruption against him. Inspector Falcon-Price arrives in town to appoint the Acting Senior Sergeant._

**Part 1**

Amy rolled onto her side, the morning light streaming in through the open pub window hitting her right in the eye, causing her to close them tightly again. It was the day that all of them had been silently dreading. It had been several days since Tom had been gunned down in his own home and today Inspector Falcon-Price would finally be in town to decide who would get Tom's job and the date would finally be set for Tom's funeral.

Outside room seven at the Imperial Hotel, life was going on as normally as it possibly could. People were moving around the hallway beyond her door while she lay under a thin layer of sheets, silently praying that she wouldn't have to get up today.

A sudden knock on her door caused Amy to sit up quickly, running a hand back through her messy hair.

"Amy, you getting up?" Chris called. "Kelly's downstairs having breakfast and I was wondering if you wanted any."

Amy slowly climbed out of bed, resigning herself to what would probably be a very bad day and opened the door a crack to reveal Chris standing in the hallway, still looking like she hadn't had anymore than two hours sleep.

"Yeah, I'll be down in a few minutes," Amy mumbled as she closed the door without waiting for Chris' reply and sat herself down on her bed, letting her head rest in her hands. Today wouldn't be a good day, she could feel it deep inside.

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Amy walked into the CI office that she once again shared with PJ to find him sitting on the corner of the desk they shared until another one could be arranged, staring out across the muster room and into what would always be Tom's office, where Mark was talking to Falcon-Price, who was nodding and not saying a word.

"What's going on?" she asked as she drew level with PJ, narrowing her eyes as she fixed her gaze within the office across from their's. He turned to face her, face grave.

"Mark is briefing Falcon-Price," he explained in a deadpan tone, "then he'll probably appoint the new Acting Senior Sergeant."

Amy looked up to PJ, eyes filled with a bizarre blend of despair and hope. "That'll be Mark, won't it?"

PJ gave a thoughtful nod. "Probably. Then he'll probably make Alex Acting Sergeant."

Amy couldn't help but give a bitter laugh at this. "Alex? Acting Sergeant? I still don't think he has the maturity for Leading Senior Constable let alone Acting Sergeant."

He looked down to her, shrugging sadly. "He's had to grow up a lot since you left. Susie too. A lot of stuff has happened in the last two and a half years that you don't know about."

Amy shuffled her feet glumly, sighing to herself. PJ was right. There was a lot of stuff that she didn't know about. And a lot of stuff that he didn't know about either.

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Falcon-Price entered the muster room from Tom's office with what the uniforms and detectives tried to pretend wasn't pleasure in his eyes. His presence seemed to silence the speculation between the officers instantly, causing them all to turn and stare at him expectantly.

Mark moved out behind Falcon-Price, standing just over his shoulder in the doorway of the office.

"I have an announcement to make," Falcon-Price declared, fixing each of the officers before him with a stare that made each of them shudder inside. "In the wake of the passing of Senior Sergeant Croydon, I have decided to appoint Sergeant Jacobs to the position of Acting Senior Sergeant."

A quiet mumble of disbelief and horror came from Kelly's desk, where she was turning to Joss in search of an answer. He could only shrug in response. He knew that Kelly didn't want to think about someone else in the top job in Mt. Thomas.

"Therefore," Falcon-Price continued, unmoved by Kelly's obvious display of discontent with Mark's promotion, "I have also decided to appoint Leading Senior Constable Kirby to Acting Sergeant. They will remain in these positions until they have taken their exams."

Susie looked over to Alex with a concerned expression on her face. Alex didn't see the doubt in Susie's eyes as he was already reacting to the news of his promotion by letting his head sink forward into his hands and massaging his temples furiously as if it may somehow help the situation. Over in the doorway to their office, PJ and Amy shared an uncertain glance, both of their minds racing with thoughts over the future of their team.

"With regards to the police funeral for Senior Sergeant Croydon," Falcon-Price said, his voice attaining a less cheery tone and becoming more deadpan, "it will be held tomorrow morning at ten. You'll be informed of the other details later today." And with that, Falcon-Price turned back to Mark and gave him a nod. "I trust you will adapt to the new circumstances quickly and without fuss."

Mark moved forward out of the doorway to the office that was now his as Falcon-Price walked briskly out of the muster room and out the doorway to the car park. He shuffled his feet awkwardly as an unpleasant silence fell upon the usually bubbly and talkative team.

"Well," Mark declared, looking up to the wall across, still not daring to look a single one of his members in the eye, "and so begins a new era in Mt. Thomas policing."

Chair legs scraped loudly on the station floor as Kelly stood up and headed to the mess room, silently removing herself from a situation that she was clearly not comfortable with. Reminiscent of a time just days earlier, Joss stood up hesitantly and followed her out of the muster room and down the corridor to the mess room, probably to try and once again offer Kelly the support that no one seemed to know how to give her anymore.

--------------------------------------

Amy watched on from the doorway as PJ sat down behind his desk, passing a hand slowly over his weary eyes. It was barely nine thirty and already it felt like it was a late afternoon. Falcon-Price generally had that effect on people.

"At least we've got a resolution now," Amy pointed out tentatively, "it means we can start to function as a station again."

PJ looked up to her pointedly. "It means we've got a whole new set of issues because we've got to learn to work together again."

Amy paused at this, lowering her gaze momentarily as she collected her thoughts and tried to consider what to say. PJ didn't give her a chance.

"A week ago, there were no problems working together. Susie and Alex worked together, Kelly and Joss worked together, the Boss stuck to himself, Mark delegated jobs and I picked a random uniform whenever I had a job," PJ explained sadly, "now, the Boss is dead, you're back and suddenly Mark and Alex have more power than we're used to."

Amy looked at him with pleading eyes. "You were the one who asked me to stay," she said quietly, suddenly stirring something different inside of PJ. He climbed to his feet and approached her slowly, resting his hands on her shoulders.

"I did," PJ pointed out, "and I don't regret it. We need you here. This office…hell, this station, seemed that little bit emptier without you."

She forced a weak smile for his sake and shrugged his hands away, absentmindedly pushing strands of dark hair out of her eyes as she sat back down at the chair she'd put on the other side of the desk across from PJ, closing the subject for now at least.

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Kelly and Joss sat side by side on the floor against the lockers in the mess room, Kelly playing with the necklace Tom had given her for her birthday earlier that year while Joss simply contented himself stealing sideway glances at the beautiful blonde beside him.

Kelly tried to put the necklace back around her neck on her own, but Joss quickly jumped in, doing up the clasp gently. She reached up, holding the small locket on the beautiful golden chain so she could see the inscription inside.

'Happy Birthday, love from Uncle Tom.'

Joss smiled at her weakly as they both sat back against the lockers. Kelly curled up into a ball, pulling her knees close to her chest. He reached out and placed his hand on top of her's, causing her to turn to him and return his half-smile, quite an accomplishment from Kelly over the last few days.

"I'm scared, Joss," she whispered softly, her voice and eyes telling Joss more than Kelly ever could in words. "I'm scared that everything's going to change too much." She turned to look at Joss, his hand still on her's. "I just want my Uncle Tom back." Kelly said sadly, tears beginning to flow again. "Why'd he have to die, Joss!?" Kelly demanded. "Why?!"

She wrapped her arms around him, snuggling close to him. Joss was a bit taken aback by this sudden show of devastation from his normally very calm and collected colleague, but hugged her tightly all the same. He buried his face in her unusually messy blonde hair, hoping that he could keep his own eyes dry.

While he'd never admit it out aloud, he enjoyed having Kelly in his arms. She was someone that he had grown to really like and love to have around. She was his opposite. They were there for each other whenever things went wrong.

"It's okay," Joss whispered to Kelly, rubbing her back gently, "it'll be alright."

--------------------------------------

Alex gathered the last of his belongings up into his arms and headed over to Mark's old desk, dumping them on top of the pile that had built up over the last five minutes. Susie watched him with intent interest and slight disapproval. He turned to face her, hoping for some sort of response. She didn't give him any.

"What? Nothing to say to your new Sergeant?" Alex said with a laugh.

Susie just shrugged and lowered her gaze. "Don't you mean Acting Sergeant?"

He sighed heavily as he flopped down in his new chair, only for it to creak loudly beneath him. He jumped up promptly, giving the chair a small kick of disapproval.

"Geez, you'd think that a Sergeant would have a better chair, wouldn't you?" he thought out loud, once again turning to Susie for a response that never came. Alex cleared his throat and ruffled his hair nervously. Never before had his attempts at humour been this poorly received.

Out in the reception area, the buzzer sounded loudly, causing Alex to jump. No one had used the reception area since Tom had died, probably out of respect for the police team trying to cope. It looked like the grace period had passed.

He turned to Susie, expecting her to obligingly jump to her feet and go to answer the buzzer. Instead, she kept her gaze fixed down on her desk, where she was filling in paperwork with such malice that Alex was surprised that she hadn't torn the paper yet.

Alex gave a roll of his eyes and headed out to the reception desk. "Oh, don't worry Acting Sergeant, I'll take care of that," he remarked in a sarcastic, high pitched voice as he closed the door behind him, missing the dark look of now fully-formed disapproval in Susie's eyes.

--------------------------------------

Alex leant forward over the counter, trying to brighten up his expression as best as possible. "Anything I can help you with, sir?"

The man aged in his early sixties standing on the opposite side of the counter fixed Alex with a glare that sent shivers up his spine. He approached him, his formidable physique making Alex uneasy.

"Yeah, I'd like to make a complaint," he said gruffly, burying his hands deep within the pockets of his faded grey pants.

Alex dug around beneath the counter for the complaint form slowly, trying to delay it as long as possible. "Who did you want to make a complaint against?"

"Tom Croydon," the man announced, his voice full of bitterness and hatred, "the man who murdered my daughter in cold blood."


	7. Ep 2: Our Way Pt2

**Part 2**

Alex invited himself into the CI office, earning himself two dirty looks from Amy and PJ. "I think you guys need to hear this."

PJ leant forward on his desk while Amy turned in her chair, resting her right arm against her side of the crowded desk.

"Hear what, exactly?" Amy asked, staring at him keenly. PJ fixed Alex with a similar expression.

Alex shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "I've got a man in the interview room who's claiming that the Boss shot his daughter to death with his police revolver thirty years ago."

PJ looked from Amy to Alex, shaking his head with a bemused expression on his face. "No," he mumbled, more to himself than anyone else, "the Boss wouldn't do a thing like that. No way."

Amy picked herself up reluctantly, grabbing her clipboard from the far corner of the desk as she did so. PJ just looked at her pleadingly.

"You can't believe that," PJ told her, causing Amy to shake her head.

"Of course not," she replied with a glum expression, "but if we don't investigate, then we're going to be accused of covering up. That'd be even worse for the Boss' reputation. We're going to find that this is a whole lot of rubbish by midday, trust me."

PJ sighed with frustration and followed Amy and Alex out into the interview room, knowing that this bad day was going to get even worse.

--------------------------------------

Alex ushered Amy and PJ into the interview room, motioning across to the man sitting opposite. "These are Senior Detectives Hasham and Fox," he introduced, "Amy, PJ – this is Peter Campbell, he's claiming that Senior Sergeant Croydon killed his daughter with his police revolver in 1977…"

"The fifteenth of August, 1977," Peter interrupted, his eyes attaining a wild, angry glint, "that bastard killed my little girl…"

"Can we please refrain from using that sort of language, thanks," PJ said as he sat down opposite and Amy took up her seat beside him. He opened his clipboard and poised his pen at the top of the page. "So, would you mind telling us what exactly happened the day that Senior Sergeant Croydon allegedly killed your daughter…"

Peter gave a bitter laugh at this, leaning across to PJ so that their noses were just centimetres apart and PJ was sure he could smell the Vegemite toast he'd had for breakfast.

"There was nothing allegedly about it," Peter spat bitterly, "that bastard gunned my baby girl down…she'd be thirty-nine this year, you know."

PJ gave a weak roll of his eyes, turning back to Amy with an impatient look in his eyes. "What exactly happened, Mr. Campbell?"

Peter sat back, using his right index finger to draw on the desk as his mind drifted back. "It was late afternoon. Georgie – my daughter – had gone over to a friend's place for the night. She and her friends had this old warehouse that they'd play in, it had been closed for years and nothing worked anymore, but it was built solid, so we decided it was safe."

Amy gave an understanding nod for effect and turned to look at PJ, only to notice that he was looking away in resentment. She kicked him under the table, and he just shrugged.

"Anyway," Peter continued, startling Amy back to attention, "next thing I know, I'm getting some call from the police saying that there's been an accident and Georgie's dead. I thought maybe she'd been hit by a car or something…then I found out that he killed her. They said that they'd received information about a drug shipments or something and that some Senior Constable had fired on Georgie in the dark. I didn't have the money or I would've sued."

PJ leant across the desk, trying to curb the temptation to simply jump up and thump the man opposite who was trying to drag Tom's reputation through the mud. "Don't you think it's even slightly possible that perhaps it was a legitimate mistake? That maybe Senior Sergeant Croydon may have made an error and shot at the wrong person?"

"Nah," Peter said gruffly, "he shot my girl in cold blood and now I want him to pay."

Amy lowered her gaze sadly. "I'm afraid that Senior Sergeant Croydon was killed several days ago by an intruder in his home," she paused, letting both PJ and Alex reflect on this and waiting to see Peter's reaction. It didn't come. "By right, you could still file a complaint, but I don't see how it would possibly help now. Finding evidence is going to be near impossible and even if we can prove anything, then all you'd be doing is damaging the reputation of a dead man."

Peter finally seemed to have taken this all in as he fixed PJ, Amy and Alex with a steely cool stare. "Looks like he got his own in the end," he reflected coldly, "I want to go ahead with the complaint, everyone has to know that he was a cold blooded killer."

--------------------------------------

Mark swore softly as he sat back in Tom's old chair, immediately making a mental note to swap it for his own as soon as possible. He surveyed Amy and PJ over the top of his reading glasses with disbelief shining in his eyes.

"I don't believe this…do you know how difficult it's going to be to find anyone who can back up Tom's story?" Mark asked them, his gaze torn between the two detectives standing before him. Both tried to keep their expressions cool and calm, but it was obvious that neither of them wanted this to be standing in the way of their chance to say goodbye to Tom. "I suppose you could trawl back through the records and see what you can find from the coroner and Internal Affairs."

PJ just shook his head and heaved a great sigh. "This is all crap, Mark. Tom would never murder a little girl in cold blood." He turned to Amy for confirmation of this, only to be met with sad green eyes that seemed to plead with him. "While Peter Campbell is spreading these lies, there'll be no police funeral. You know that."

Amy closed her eyes gently as PJ brushed past on his way out of the office and back across the muster room to their own. Mark turned sympathetic eyes to Amy sighed glumly.

"I can't wait until all of this is over with," Mark lamented as Amy shrugged weakly in response. She forced a sad smile and left him alone in his office to stew over everything while she and PJ tried to beat the clock and save the reputation of a dead man.

--------------------------------------

Kelly held the phone to her ear, her eyes closed tightly in prayer that the person on the other end would pick up soon. So far she'd tried calling Susan and Anna several times, but they would never answer the phone. She had gotten through to Susan once, only for her to slam down the phone hard at the mention of her father's name. After all, they hadn't spoken since he'd called her a week out from Christmas in 2004. It had been nearly three years; she couldn't blame her for not wanting to know.

As she gave up once again and slammed the phone down in frustration, Kelly began to massage her temples. She didn't know what she had expected from Anna and Susan. Some sympathy? Some distress at the death of their father? Some sign that they even cared anymore?

Joss came over to her and gently squeezed her shoulder, placing a coffee in front of her. Kelly looked up to him with a puzzled expression on her face which slowly faded into a faint smile. She held it to her lips, her eyes blank, letting the steam slowly waft up over her face. Joss pulled his chair over to sit beside her, his gaze fixed on her desk.

"No luck with Susan or Anna?" he asked quietly, causing Kelly to shake her head sadly.

"It's like they don't even care anymore." Kelly whispered, the words catching in her throat slightly. "Their dad is dead and it's like they couldn't care less."

Joss rubbed her shoulder gently, Kelly's grief-stricken expression brightening slightly. "Hey, Kel," he soothed, "they'll come. Don't worry."

She shrugged him off, turning to face him with shining eyes. "I don't know what I'd do without you right now," she told him softly, "when everything else is going mad, you're staying sane."

He smiled slightly, cocking an eyebrow at this. "Yes, because I'm a very sane guy," he joked, making Kelly chuckle silently. It was a nice feeling, making Kelly smile.

--------------------------------------

"Here we go!" Amy declared as she returned to the CI office from the fax machine, holding several pieces of paper above her head, causing PJ to look up from his hands. She flipped through the coroner's report quickly, before having it snatched from her hands roughly by PJ. "Tom was cleared of any wrong-doing."

"It says here that it was a high-risk job and that the kids were lucky not to have been killed by the drug traffickers themselves long before the coppers ever moved in." PJ read, "So why is he still intent on destroying Tom?"

Amy sat down opposite PJ and surveyed him sympathetically. She reached over and gently gave him arm a rub as he looked up and their eyes connected, sending a bolt through Amy's body.

"People deal with grief in different ways," she explained gently, "just look outside to the muster room. Just look at us."

PJ nodded thoughtfully, still not breaking the connection between their eyes. Amy opened her mouth to say something, maybe to right whatever had been wronged those last days she had spent in Mt. Thomas two and a half years ago, but seemed to change her mind and looked away, picking herself up and grabbing the coroner's report.

"I think we need to track down those other kids who were in the building at the time," Amy suggested, nervously brushing her dark hair from her eyes as she did so, "it says here that Claire Matthews gave evidence at the coroner's inquest, maybe she might be able to give us something more that we could use to clear Tom again and end this once and for all."


	8. Ep 2: Our Way Pt3

**Part 3**

Amy wrapped loudly on the door to a small Mt. Thomas house, casting her gaze back past PJ standing behind her and over the small front yard. A couple of tricycles and other toys lay scattered and forgotten in the front yard, which was overrun with weeds. She rose an eyebrow at PJ and looked back at the door just as it opened and a woman in her late thirties with a baby in her arms stepped out onto the step.

"Can I help you?" she asked impatiently, adjusting the child on her hip and glancing back inside to where several young toddlers were trying to play Twister.

Amy reached into her pocket and pulled out her badge. "I'm Senior Detective Fox and this is Senior Detective Hasham from Mt. Thomas CI…"

The woman shook her head sharply, sending her short black curls flying. "I've done nothing wrong, I have nothing to say to you lot."

She tried to slam the door shut, but Amy stuck her foot in the gap just in time. "We're here because an allegation has been made against our Senior Sergeant who was killed several days ago. Tom Croydon, you may have heard of him."

The woman made a face at his name, opening the door slightly. "Yeah, I know him."

"Are you Claire Matthews?" PJ interrupted, incurring an annoyed glance from Amy for his troubles. The woman – Claire – nodded suspiciously.

"Yeah…look, what is this about? I'm trying to run a kid's party here in case you can't tell." Claire snapped, re-adjusting the baby in her arms again, who stirred slightly. The sound of smashing glass came from inside the house. Amy and PJ craned their necks to look, but they didn't need to see what had happened to know. "I told you not to touch that!" Claire shouted. "Just go out the back and play for a while. Mummy's kind of busy."

Amy laughed weakly. "Looks like fun," she remarked.

Claire shrugged in response. "You obviously don't have kids then. Anyway, you said something about Tom Croydon?"

PJ nodded. "We have a Peter Campbell down at the station claiming that Tom Croydon killed his daughter during a drug raid thirty years ago. Georgia Campbell? You gave evidence at the coroner's inquest."

Claire looked from PJ to Amy and back again with a horrified expression on her face. Her voice suddenly seemed to attain a weak, choked tone. "That was thirty years ago," she managed to mumble, "she's been dead for thirty years."

Amy looked down to her feet, nodding weakly. "Mr. Campbell is asking us to pursue his claim against Senior Sergeant Croydon. We're wondering if you'd be able to come down to the station and speak to us."

Claire looked away at the sounds of shouting from the backyard. She turned to look at Amy pointedly. "Do I look like I can come down to the station?"

"That's why the Lord invented Dictaphones," PJ declared as he reached into his pocket, pulling out a small silver object. Amy rolled her eyes, silently cursing herself. Why hadn't she thought of that?

--------------------------------------

PJ set the Dictaphone on the kitchen table as he and Amy took seats opposite from Claire, an old interviewing habit. Claire sat the now wide-awake and gurgling baby in the high chair next to her, giving the bright-eyed infant a couple of plastic toys to play with. She turned to face the two officers, shaking her head in disbelief. "I thought it was all over once I gave my evidence and that cop was cleared. But I still saw Georgie's face when I tried to sleep."

"Can you run through what happened that night?" Amy probed gently, leaning in over the table. "As much as you can remember?"

Claire laughed bitterly. "I don't think I'll ever forget." She lowered her gaze and bit her bottom lip nervously, trying to compose herself. "We were over a friend's house and we decided to go play in this old warehouse. It had been on the demolition list for years, but they never got around to doing anything."

"And?" Amy asked quietly, leaning in further.

Claire struggled to keep herself composed as she hid her face in her hands. "We'd heard some noise around the back, so Georgie and I offered to go take a look. We had this, um…" She began to motion a long object with her hands. "torch, but it ran out of batteries about half an hour earlier. I remember someone was shouting something about putting a weapon down."

"Police, don't move…" PJ mused gently, "put the weapon down and step away."

Claire looked up and nodded to PJ with a saddened expression on her face. "Yeah…we didn't know what to do. We'd come from the poorer side of town, we didn't know what the hell we were expected to do. Georgie was still holding the torch at her side…next thing I know there's this almighty bang and Georgie's lying on the ground with all this blood on her chest."

"About how long would have passed between when Tom Croydon issued the warning and when the shot was fired?" PJ asked, glancing over to Amy who was just staring blankly.

Claire shrugged as tears filled her eyes. "I don't know…a couple of seconds. For God's sake, I was only nine years old! One second she's there and the next second she's dead! All I know is Tom Croydon shot my best friend and my life has been stuffed ever since!"

--------------------------------------

PJ hit the stop button on the tape player in their office, looking up to Amy, who was biting her bottom lip as she did whenever her mind was clearly somewhere else. Her eyes were misty and blank as she began to twist a strand of hair around her finger.

"Claire Matthews obviously blames the Boss," PJ said, stirred Amy back to life. She sat forward in her chair, leaning against their desk. She nodded distractedly. "It'd help us so much if she had any idea of how long it was between when Tom called out and when he fired." PJ mumbled as he ran his hands back across his head, finally lacing his fingers together at the back.

Amy looked at him pointedly. "What nine year old kid would be able to tell how long it was back then, let alone in thirty years time?" Amy demanded of him quietly. "I don't even remember much of anything about the accident that killed my parents and that was only twenty-four years ago!"

Suddenly, Amy was very subdued, realising that she had given too much away. She turned her gaze away, beginning to bite her bottom lip again. PJ tilted his head to one side gently as he surveyed her sadly. He considered saying something, but quickly changed his mind. He had just had two and a half years to work out what exactly he should and shouldn't have said to Amy.

PJ picked himself up and regarded the tape player, thinking to himself. He didn't get to think much, however, before a loud voice disrupted him.

"What the hell is going on here now?!"

Amy and PJ both turned to look out into the muster room and shared a quick glance when they realised who it was. Falcon-Price had just heard about the allegations against Tom.

--------------------------------------

Falcon-Price sat down in Tom's old chair, sitting back as if it were his own. He glared across the three officers standing before him – Mark, Amy and PJ. His eyes were cold and narrow.

"How much have you done in the investigation yet?" he demanded.

Amy shuffled her feet awkwardly. "We've interviewed Peter Campbell and spoken to the girl who gave evidence at the inquest."

"And does it look like Tom Croydon may have been cleared falsely?" Falcon-Price asked. The three before him refused to look up, each staring at their feet intently. "Well? Does it?"

"They both blame the Boss," PJ explained quietly, "it doesn't mean he's guilty though…"

Falcon-Price seemed to be quite pleased at this, rising to his feet and looking to each in turn. "Until you can prove, without a doubt, that Tom Croydon didn't knowingly kill that girl, there'll be no police funeral, understood?"

As the inspector straightened himself and stormed out of the station, slamming every door he could along the way, the three stood alone, none game enough to speak. Finally, PJ left, slamming the door to Tom's office loudly behind him, causing Amy to flinch slightly.

Mark looked over to her. "Are you going to be okay?"

Amy didn't turn to face Mark, instead choosing to keep her gaze locked on the box of belongings that Mark had cleared out of Tom's desk. He bent down and picked up a photograph of several officers standing together. She used her thumb to gently rub a mark off the surface.

Susie, Alex and Jonesy clustered together, Susie with each arm wrapped around the shoulders of the two guys. PJ had his arm around Tom's shoulders and Tom had apparently gotten into the spirit because he seemed very at ease. On the other side of the picture, Kelly and Joss stood together, Joss with his arms around Kelly. Mark stood off to the far side, Chris standing beside him. All in all, they looked very cosy.

"When was this taken?" Amy asked quietly. She ran a finger along PJ's cheekbone. "I don't remember being there."

Mark reached over, gently taking the photograph from Amy's hands. "That's because you weren't. It was about a year ago, just before Jonesy left. The Boss' birthday."

Amy nodded weakly and lowered her gaze, walking out of the office wordlessly with her arms wrapped around herself. Why did she feel like she'd missed everything?

--------------------------------------

Joss returned from the bathroom, straightening his uniform as he did so. His gaze jumped from Susie and Alex where sitting at their respective desks, apparently ignoring the other. Then he noticed that Kelly's desk was empty. Her coffee sat abandoned beside a photograph of herself and Tom. Joss walked over slowly, picking it up. He ran his thumb along Kelly's cheek. She couldn't have been more than fifteen when this photo had been taken. Even then, she had still been a bundle of sunshine.

"Where's Kel?" she asked, looking up to Susie and Alex. They both looked up at exactly the same time, and both tried to respond at exactly the same time.

Finally, Alex motioned for Susie to speak. "I think she's outside, Joss," she said kindly. "She might want to be alone…"

Susie's words of advice went unnoticed as Joss raced out of the station where he quickly caught sight of Kelly sitting on the curb, her head low.

"Hey, Kel," he called gently as he approached, causing to look up in surprise. She had tears on her cheeks. He sat down beside her, resting his hands in his lap. "I saw the picture on your desk."

Kelly laughed bitterly to herself as Joss looked over to her. "I just needed to get out of there for a bit."

Joss nodded as he met her eyes slowly. They shone at him, pleading with him silently. He reached out gently, rubbing her cheek. She smiled weakly and closed her eyes, enjoying his touch. There was something nice about having him there.

He slowly closed his eyes and moved in towards Kelly's lips, his gently connecting with her's. She didn't resist him, instead kissing him back as she rose her hands to his cheeks, holding him close.

They finally pulled apart, Kelly still letting her hands rest on his cheeks.

"You're a pretty good kisser, Peroni," she said with a weak laugh.

Joss nodded and met her eyes again. "You are too," he admitted as she moved in and they kissed once again.


	9. Ep 2: Our Way Pt4

**Part 4**

**_Lyrics in this part are from "Behind Those Eyes" by 3 Doors Down._**

Amy watched as PJ paced the CI office, slowly making her dizzy and wearing a track in the floor. She sat on the corner of their desk, her mind running at double speed, trying to find a way to clear their Boss so that he could have the goodbye he deserved and could be remembered the way he should be.

"There has to be something," PJ mumbled as he stopped and looked at Amy expectantly. Hot tears were welling in his eyes. "Something we're missing."

Amy tilted her head back absentmindedly, gazing up at the ceiling. "This warehouse is in Mt. Thomas…"

PJ nodded. "Yeah? Your point?"

She jumped to her feet, grabbing her clipboard and camera. "My point is that maybe there's some clue there that can help us clear the Boss' name."

--------------------------------------

Amy and PJ walked through the darkened warehouse, torches on and shining two narrow beams of light in front of them as they made their way between the piles of boxes and crates and dodged the occasional rat that darted in front of them.

"This place should have been knocked down well before that girl was killed," Amy observed as she turned her torch up to the ceiling, where the beams holding the roof on were in clear view.

"The fact that it's still standing today is illegal," PJ added as he jumped out of the way of a couple of rats as they scampered across his path. "What I don't get is how any kid could have found this fun."

Amy gave a false laugh. "I don't get kids today," she said sadly, "and what's worse is that I didn't get them when I was one."

PJ looked over to her curiously. He rose an eyebrow, silently urging her to continue.

"Look, I just couldn't be the immature kid everyone else was," she sighed, her voice pained, "losing your parents can do that to you."

He nodded, finally accepting that they had reached the very familiar point in any discussion involving Amy's past where he was best to just shut up. He flicked his torch off down a small corridor of boxes at his left, only to notice that at least a good twenty rats had amassed at the box's opening. He elbowed her in the arm softly, nodding towards the box. "Now, what do you suppose is in there?" he asked with a half-smile on his face.

Amy mimicked PJ's expression, not that he could have seen it properly in the dark. She turned her own torch to where PJ had focussed his, scaring a few rats off into hiding. "Drugs?" she suggested, causing PJ to turn to her, giving her a look that said it as clearly as he ever could have out loud. Bingo.

PJ looked down at his own torch for a moment, before throwing it at the box, hard enough to hit the box and fall to the ground loudly, but not hard enough to break it, or even cause it to turn off. The torch's spin cast a thin stream of light around the corridor in every direction, scaring off the rest of the rats. He headed over to his torch with Amy in tow behind him, her eyes narrowed in the disbelief that PJ's idea just then had worked.

He bent down to collect his torch, only to stop part way when he caught sight of black metal glinting in the light from Amy's torch. PJ brought himself up to full height as he pulled out his asp and used it to poke the metal until the pieces of shredded, rat-eaten cardboard and rotten foam had been pushed aside to reveal a black hand gun.

"Oh my God…" Amy mumbled as PJ returned his asp to his belt and pulled out a pair of blue gloves, gently picking up the weapon. Amy held her torch high so they could survey it properly. It looked old and pretty rusty, but it was definitely a gun.

Amy sat her torch on the ground temporarily as she pulled out an evidence bag, opening it as PJ gently dropped the weapon in. As she sealed the bag and retrieved her torch and PJ's, she noticed that he was already digging through the rubbish in the box, until he lifted out a large black garbage bag, with holes clearly rotted through, exposing what was clearly rotten marijuana.

PJ shot Amy an expression that seemed to be a combination of pride and disgust. "Well," he declared, "looks like someone was keeping drugs here. And never came back to collect."

--------------------------------------

Mark approached Amy and PJ in shock as he saw them standing in the muster room, carrying a large, very old cardboard box. He whipped his glasses from his nose and looked at them in horror.

"Do I want to ask what this is?" he asked, eyeing off the box, which seemed to carry a very distinctive odour. Kelly and Joss returned to the muster room at this point, both sharing a look of pure horror at the sight of the mouldy old thing.

"What the hell is that?" Joss asked as he and Kelly edged towards their desks, neither quite game to take their eyes off the box. Amy and PJ set it down on the ground, earning more curious looks from Susie and Alex as they did so.

Amy straightened herself. "We went out to the old warehouse where the girl was shot," she explained, "and we found this box being the gathering spot for a large number of rats."

Kelly and Susie both let out small strangled cries at this, while Alex and Joss just continued to stare on in confusion.

"We found this inside," PJ declared as he pulled the bagged hand gun out of his jacket pocket. Mark grabbed the bag, snatching it from PJ's grasp.

"God," Mark mumbled to himself, "I haven't seen one of those for at least twenty years."

PJ reclaimed the gun, looking down at it thoughtfully. Amy took this moment to show off their other discovery. "That's not all we found," she pointed out, pulling the garbage bag out of the box just enough for Mark to be able to see what was inside.

He pulled a disgusted face. "Well, I think that used to be marijuana," Mark observed, "not that you could tell anymore." He looked up to Amy. "Trafficable quantity?"

"Oh, yes," Amy announced as she motioned to Kelly and Joss, "very trafficable. No wonder whoever owned this stuff stashed it away in a derelict warehouse. You guys want to drop this over to Forensics?"

Kelly and Joss shared a pained expression at the thought of even touching the thing, but eventually resigned themselves to their fates, grabbing the box and heading out to the cars, more quiet then they perhaps normally would have been.

Mark watched them go before turning back to the detectives. "Do you think they might be able to lift something off it?" he asked.

Amy shrugged. "Probably not. But they might be able to give us some info on the drugs and the gun, anyway."

--------------------------------------

Joss bent at the knees to support the weight of the box as Kelly opened the back of the 4WD so they could put it inside. They gently eased it into the back of the vehicle, slamming the hatch shut. He turned to face her.

"Kel," he probed gently, his mind screaming out in protest.

Kelly looked up at him, fixing him with a curious stare. "Yeah?"

"I was wondering…maybe, if you're not doing anything…you could come around to my place after work," Joss suggested, his voice uneasy, "maybe have a drink or two…"

She gave a bitter laugh as she rounded the car to the driver's side. "Joss, I live at a pub run by the local bush telegraph. If I go around to your place and have a drink and don't come home, then she's going to jump to conclusions."

Joss leant on the top of the car, folding his arms. "Yeah, but they'll be all the right conclusions, won't they?"

Kelly just shook her head as she climbed into the car, slamming the door. Joss entered his side and sat down beside her, turning to face her. "Maybe," Kelly said with a shrug, "look, we're burying the Boss tomorrow, I don't know if I want to be starting a relationship with you the night before."

His face faltered at this, his eyes suddenly losing the shine that his kiss with Kelly had created.

"Look," Kelly continued, his downtrodden expression sending a pang through her heart, "maybe another time. Just…not right now. Okay?" She paused, watching as Joss looked away, nodding his head. "We're still friends though…partners?"

Joss nodded strongly, turning to face her with what was probably the beginning of tears in his eyes. "Yeah…of course."

_You say that you're sorry_

_And you say that it hurts you the same_

_Is there something here to believe_

_Or is it just another part of the game_

--------------------------------------

Alex leant forward across his desk, tilting his head slightly as he watched Susie work, her head lowered and strands of blonde hair hanging across her face.

"You know…we're going to have to work together, Suse," he explained, trying to keep his voice in the range between bright and bubbly and soft and sensitive. "I'm not exactly happy with this. If I had my way, you'd be the Sergeant and I'd still be a Leading Senior Connie."

Susie finally sighed in frustration and looked up to Alex, fixing him with a hardened glare. "Look, I'm not happy with you being Acting Sergeant," she pointed out coldly, "and yes, I would have liked the job. But now is not the time to be arguing about who gets to be what now the Boss is dead."

Alex nodded understandingly and looked away, the bravado suddenly gone from his eyes.

"If we hope to have any chance of surviving as a station and as a team without the Boss, then we have to put aside all of the things that have torn us apart in the past." Susie said, her eyes filling with small tears. "We managed to survive losing our station three and a half years ago, because we stuck together like a team. Sure, we were all falling apart, but we all pulled together and helped each other. We can survive this too, but only if we can do the same."

Alex felt his face grow grave. "And if we can't?"

Susie looked away, closing her eyes as she tried to fight back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. "Then we've got no hope of ever keeping the Boss' spirit alive."


	10. Ep2: Our Way Pt5

**Part 5**

Amy dropped a folder onto the desk in front of PJ, causing him to look up at her in surprise. "Forensics," she explained, motioning to them, "open it up. Have a look."

PJ narrowed in his eyes in suspicion as he picked up the folder and opened it gently. He skimmed through, each flip of a page sending another shiver of anxiousness through Amy's body.

"The marijuana's from the same batch that was seized from the warehouse prior to the shooting of Georgie Campbell," PJ observed, earning an encouraging nod from Amy.

"Keep going," she urged.

PJ looked down again and continued reading. "The hand gun is also similar to other seized during the raid." He turned to Amy with a disbelieving expression on his face. "So they somehow missed all of this?"

Amy leant side-on against the wall, folding her arms against her chest. "Once the girl had been killed, the raid was abandoned. They never caught the people responsible, although suspect that they all moved on, and never recovered all of the drugs or weapons. It was the seventies, the force wasn't as closely monitored as it is now."

PJ narrowed his eyes as he caught sight of a name in the report. He pointed a finger at it. "What about this Roger Dunn guy?" he asked. "Did they ever catch this guy?"

Amy shook her head sadly. "No. He was only new to the drug business, young and very quick. They think he was probably there during the raid and managed to hide out. They tried to find him as a witness during the coroner's inquest, but he never surfaced until about two years ago when he was charged with a minor traffic offence. Apparently he lives over in St. Davids."

PJ looked up at her, a smile forming on his lips. "So, what are we waiting for?"

--------------------------------------

Amy and PJ looked up to the door of a small St. Davids house as it opened, exposing a man in his early fifties with greying frizzy hair and haunted hazel eyes. He looked at the pair in confusion.

"I'm Senior Detective Hasham and this is Senior Detective Fox from Mt. Thomas CI," PJ introduced, motioning back to Amy. "You're Roger Dunn I assume?"

Roger's face suddenly filled with intent panic as he tried to slam the door in their faces, only to be stopped by PJ's outstretched hand.

"Mate," PJ said with a smile on his face, "you should know by now that we coppers have long found a way around the slammed door."

Roger rolled his eyes and fixed them with an annoyed glare. "Look, I paid those fines years ago."

"We're not here about the fines," Amy chimed from behind PJ, "we're here about an incident thirty years ago. At the old warehouse in Mt. Thomas in August 1977?"

He shook his head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

PJ sighed impatiently. "Yes, you do," he said, his voice clearly venting his annoyance, "a police officer shot and killed a nine year old girl during a drug raid and you witnessed it. Yet you just ran off and now we need your help to clear that copper's name."

"And why would I want to help some pig clear his name thirty years after the event…even if I was there?" Roger asked, leaning against the doorframe to stop his body from shaking. Even with this, Amy noticed that his hands still shook ever so slightly.

"Because," Amy answered quietly, "we've got enough evidence to have you put away for a long time, even now, and if you co-operate, it'll go down a lot better with the judges. Courts don't like drug dealers."

PJ nodded back to Amy. "Yeah," he added loudly, "and they like crims who lie to the police even less. So if I were you, mate, I'd start talking to us. And pretty soon."

Roger seemed to open his mouth to argue, only to decide it was a worthless venture and motioned for the pair to enter. "I'm sick of the lying anyway."

--------------------------------------

PJ switched on their trusty Dictaphone as they each took up a chair in the cramped living room of Roger Dunn's house. He set it on the table, the casing glinting in the afternoon light as he did so.

"Tape recorded interview between Senior Detectives Hasham and Fox with Mr. Roger Dunn commenced at 2:56pm," PJ said as he glanced down at his watch. He looked up to the man opposite. "You were at the warehouse on the fifteen of August, 1977, weren't you?"

Roger nodded slowly, his eyes glazed over and his mind wandering back. "The leaders had told me to stay around that day and guard the stuff, said that the pigs were getting suss and I was a clean-skin."

"What happened?" Amy asked, glancing at PJ momentarily as she leant forward in the old leather lounge chair.

"Well," Roger began, "I was just hanging around, keeping an eye on things when these little kids came inside like they were always doing. They drove us all crazy, coming in and running around. But you couldn't tell them to rack off or you'd probably be exposed, so you just tried to keep out of their way. Let them think the place was abandoned, you know."

Amy and PJ shared a nod, sharing a quick glance as they did so.

"I hid in this little hiding spot I'd made months before out of some old crates and planks of wood," Roger continued, "figured I could wait them out. They hung around for a couple of hours, when I finally saw a couple of them walking past. They had some long torch thing that one of them was carrying. I could only see it because the door had opened. I thought it might have been one of the kids, but I suppose now it was probably the pigs.

"This pig came around from behind some boxes, holding a gun up and telling them not to move and to put the gun down," Roger explained, earning a nod and a slight smile from PJ. So far it was stacking up. "One of the girls kept holding the torch though, sort of at her side…like a shotgun. Hell, if I hadn't of known it was a torch, I might have thought it was a gun too!"

Amy sat back, her eyes narrowed. "So, is it possible that maybe the police officer mistook the torch for a shotgun and thought he was being threatened?"

Roger looked up and nodded at the two detectives. "Yeah…the pig kept calling out to them. He sounded kind of scared. It must have been about a minute before he fired the shot. He kept warning her until he fired…the girl just fell. I couldn't stick around. I took off. No way was I getting involved."

PJ looked over to Amy, who was nodding at him. He leant forward, his elbows resting on his knees. "So, in your opinion, did the officer give the girl enough time to put the weapon down before he fired?"

"I reckon!" Roger said, switching his gaze between the two. "Hell, knowing the kinds of dealers they were trying to catch, I would have shot the kid myself if I thought for a second it was them!"

Amy leant forward, her finger hovering over the stop button. "Interview terminated at 3:05pm."

--------------------------------------

Falcon-Price narrowed his gaze as he listened to the interview between Amy, PJ and Roger Dunn. His expression was now very downtrodden. He seemed almost angry that someone had backed up Tom's version of events. Finally, he hit the stop button and looked up to the detectives and Acting Senior Sergeant standing on the other side of the desk in front of him.

"Well," he declared glumly, "it seems that the version of events that the coroner agreed with have been confirmed. Where is Mr. Dunn?"

"In the cells," Amy explained, "we've charged him with offences relating to the raid and drug ring thirty years ago. But with his pretty clean record since, the time that's passed and our good word to the magistrate, I doubt he'll spend much time inside."

The inspector nodded as he drew himself to his feet, not bothering to push the chair in as he headed to the door. PJ finally spoke up, voicing the only concern that had fuelled them that day. "What about the police funeral?"

Falcon-Price grumbled at this, turning slowly to face the three eager officers before him. "The police funeral is back on. Senior Sergeant Croydon will be sent off with full honours. I've got a couple of officers waiting outside, so we'll be taking Mr. Dunn if you don't mind."

Amy, PJ and Mark shared a glance as Falcon-Price stormed out of the station, clearly stomping his feet far more loudly than was really necessary.

Mark folded his arms against his chest while Amy and PJ shared a smile.

"Well," Mark announced, smiling at the two detectives, "look's like you've managed to save Tom Croydon's reputation. You should be proud."

PJ nodded, his smile fading slowly into a saddened sigh. "Yeah…it looks like it's finally time to say goodbye."


	11. Ep 2: Our Way Pt6

**Part 6**

**_Lyrics in this part come from the songs "In Loving Memory" by Alter Bridge and "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey and Boyz 2 Men._**

Joss gently knocked on the door to Kelly's pub room, receiving only a teary mumble of "Piss off, Joss" as a reply.

He knocked again. "Kel," he called softly, "it's me. Open the door, please."

Finally, when he received no response a second time, he invited himself inside, where he could see Kelly curled up into a ball on her bed, cuddling her pillow tightly to her chest. He crossed the distance to her bed quickly, sitting down beside her. He gently rubbed her hand, the touch enough to soothe Kelly's sobs just slightly.

As he closed his eyes, taking in everything that had happened in the last couple of days, he could hear Kelly singing some lullaby he'd long forgotten under her breath, and probably out of key as well. He still found himself singing it too however, suddenly realising just what Kelly wanted.

Still singing the lullaby gently, he lay down beside her, pulling her into his arms and holding her to him. She didn't fight him; instead, she seemed to curl up into his arms. They both needed the security to know that the other was there, even when their mentor wasn't. And they both wanted to believe that somehow everything would be alright again.

_And I know_

_You're a part of me_

_And I miss your song_

_That sets me free_

_I sing it while_

_I feel I can't hold on_

_I sing tonight_

_Because it comforts me_

--------------------------------------

Amy stepped out of her Vee Dub, wearing her best black suit and hair pulled back off her face in a ponytail. She looked around at the other people amassed outside the church, surprised at the overwhelming number of formal police uniforms. It seemed that, no matter how many toes Tom Croydon had stepped on over recent years, he was still someone that everyone loved.

She scanned the crowd, desperately seeking out PJ. Finally she found him standing off to one side, talking to a grey-faced Nick Schultz who had a woman – his wife, presumedly – at his side. Amy approached the small group, causing PJ to immediately brighten at the sight of her.

"Amez!" he called to her. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming."

Amy pushed a strand of dark hair behind her ear, ignoring Nick's whispered conversation with his wife. "I had to find a good suit."

PJ motioned over to Nick's wife. "Amy, you haven't met Zoe Hamilton yet, have you? Nick's wife. Zoe, this is Senior Detective Amy Fox."

Zoe extended a hand to Amy's, forcing a smile as they shook hands. "Nick's told me about you. Hope you're giving PJ here a good run for his money."

"Yeah, she is," PJ added with as best a laugh that he could manage, "when she's not working in Homicide, anyway."

Nick rose an eyebrow. "Homicide, eh?" he asked, "well, Amy Fox, dear, it seems you've been hiding things from me."

The group turned to see Inspector Monica Draper approaching them, motioning in towards the church. "They're starting soon. You might want to come inside."

Amy, PJ, Nick and Zoe nodded as Monica turned and left them standing alone, watching as some of the large group started moving into the church.

"I suppose we should go inside," PJ suggested, receiving nods from the others in response. Nick pulled Zoe close as they rejoined the main group, while PJ reached out, gently taking Amy's hand. Much to his surprise, she didn't pull away.

Instead, she squeezed him back. PJ found himself smiling weakly. It seemed that after two and a half years, the trust that had been destroyed was finally coming back.

--------------------------------------

Susie slipped in beside Alex, wringing an old faded hankie that some kind officer outside had given her in her hands. He shifted over to the edge of the pew, still unsure of how to react to Susie after their less than positive run-ins yesterday.

He looked back behind him, scanning the crowded church. "I don't think Jonesy and Tess are coming," he observed, "must have done the smart thing and stayed away."

Susie turned to gaze over the crowd, silently conceding that Alex was right. There was no sign of Jonesy or Tess. Yet, as much as she hated Jonesy at times, she had sort of hoped that he'd come, if only to prove to her that he still had a heart, that maybe, he still looked back on Mt. Thomas and thought of the good times. Or even just showed up to say goodbye to the Boss.

"Yeah…must have…" Susie agreed quietly, not quite sure if she was happy about that or not.

--------------------------------------

Joss wrapped his arms tighter around Kelly as they sat down on the empty space that someone had saved for them at the front of the church. He gently rubbed her, holding her tightly to him.

"They never got back to me," Kelly whispered quietly, "after everything, Susan and Anna never got back to me." She looked up to him pleadingly. "They're not coming, are they?"

He looked down at her, his eyes shining as Kelly began to cry quietly. He glanced around the church desperately, hoping that somewhere, amongst the mourners, were Tom's daughters. It would break Kelly's heart if they hadn't come.

Then, suddenly, two female figures and two children appeared in the doorway, all of them keeping to the back of the church, none of them looking at all comfortable. It was Susan and Anna and Tom's grandchildren.

Joss couldn't help the excited yelp that escaped him. He elbowed Kelly pointing around at the back of the church. "It's Susan and Anna!" he said excitedly. "They came, Kel, they came!"

Kelly jumped to her feet, her eyes jumping to the figures hiding at the back. She sat back down beside Joss, curling closer to him. "They came, Joss," she managed, her voice little more than a whisper, "they came."

--------------------------------------

"Tom Croydon," Chris began, her voice shaky and croaky, "you didn't always agree with him. There were times when you just wanted to strangle him because he was being so damn stubborn but…love him or hate him, you had to respect him."

The people gathered in the church pews all nodded in agreement with Chris' statement. PJ, Amy, Nick and Zoe all gathered at one edge of the front, eyes occasionally travelling from Chris over to the solid oak coffin sitting in the centre of the church, decorated in such a way that would make Tom proud. An Australian flag had been draped over the coffin, exposing enough of the lid to show a silver plague with 'Tom Croydon' engraved in it. Several wreaths of flowers had been laid out, most from his colleagues in Mt. Thomas. His police hat sat in pride of place at the front of the coffin for all to see, with a picture of Tom dressed in his formal uniform placed behind.

Kelly turned to bury her head in Joss' shoulder, clinging to his arm tightly. Even after all of the rivalry and all of the arguing, in the end, they needed each other. While it was Kelly crying into his shoulder, he still needed her to hold to him.

Mark sat further back in the church, surrounded by strangers. He had tried to convince Penny to come, but she had refused, claiming that she had something already planned and couldn't possibly come to say goodbye to a man she had never met, but had been such a big part of life in Mt. Thomas.

Susie lowered her head thoughtfully, closing her eyes as she reflected back. Alex glanced over to her, noticing that the hankie in her hands was well and truly soaked. He dug through his pockets until he found one of his own and handed it over to her, causing her to force a weak smile for his sake and mouth a word of thanks to him. The acknowledgement of their friendship was nice, to say the least.

Chris mopped at her tears with a tissue from the box that someone had thoughtfully placed at the lectern and looked over the sea of colleagues, friends and family of Tom Croydon. She didn't look down at her notes for this. "Tom never let us get too preoccupied with anything that ever went wrong. Whenever it looked like we were going to get too emotional about something, he was always there with a friendly hug or to remind us that justice had to be found. He got us through the hard times, our Tom."

PJ bowed his head, casting a sideways glance over to Nick, whose mind had obviously begun to drift at Chris' words. He knew that his old friend could only be thinking of Wayne's death nearly twelve years ago. Not much further away, he could see Susie pressing her fingers to her lips as what were most likely thoughts of Jo and the bombing came to mind. PJ tore his gaze away from the two and looked back into his lap, while his thoughts drifted to Maggie Doyle and the way Tom had helped him to cope with her death.

_And I know you're shining down on me from Heaven_

_Like so many friends we've lost along the way_

"Tom," Chris continued, "he wasn't just another copper killed. He was a brilliant officer who should have had another ten, twenty maybe even thirty years ahead of him to see his grandkids grow up and see his police team grow. He is one of the hundreds of officers who have given their lives for this job. We can't forget what he gave this community. There'll be a new Senior Sergeant who'll probably lead the coppers to bigger and greater things, but there'll never be another Tom Croydon. He was one in a million."

--------------------------------------

Kelly approached the lectern, her heart pounding in her chest. The other officers all watched her with sympathy shining in their eyes. They knew she wasn't just another one of the officers that had been guided by Tom over the years or just a good friend. She was both, and so much more. She was almost more like a daughter to him than his own because, no matter how much of a jerk Tom acted over the last few years, she never once lost faith in him.

"I remember when my dad was killed fourteen years ago," Kelly reminisced quietly, shuffling her feet awkwardly and struggling to keep her gaze out amongst the group of people sitting before her, each one silently probing her to continue. "A couple of his colleagues had just told us what happened and we couldn't believe it. Then, just minutes after they'd left, Uncle Tom invited himself into our house and pulled us into his arms and just held us while we cried. He always knew how to make me feel like everything was possible."

_Never had I imagined_

_Living without your smile_

_Feeling and knowing you hear me_

_It keeps me alive_

"He was always like a dad to me," Kelly managed through the tears that were threatening to overwhelm her, "you know, it was never like he was trying to replace my dad, but he was just…there for me."

Several members of the group nodded in agreement with Kelly's words. Amy looked over to PJ, gently taking his hand. He looked over to her and smiled gently. Susie used Alex's hankie to once again dab her eyes while he watched on with concern. Joss sat back in the pew, eyes filling with tears as Kelly spoke while Mark sat forward, trying to keep his face dry and steely cold like the other officers surrounding him. He didn't think he had quite the right to cry as the others.

Kelly pressed her fingers to her mouth as she struggled to find the strength to keep going, but eventually found that there was nothing more to say. She mumbled an apology to the crowd and hurried back to her pew, letting Joss pull her close.

--------------------------------------

Amy and PJ led the other Mt. Thomas officers and Nick out of the church into the hot rush of sunlight and the warm breeze outside. Such a stark opposite to the cold, mournful ambience inside. Behind them, Kelly and Joss was walking out, hands intertwined followed by Susie and Alex keeping to themselves and Mark and Nick bringing up the rear. Outside the church doors, they formed two lines – a guard of honour for the man who had led their team for so long. Amy, PJ, Nick and Mark stood on one side, while Susie, Alex, Kelly and Joss formed a row opposite.

Through the open doors came several officers, carrying Tom's coffin on their shoulders. As they passed, each officer rose their hands to their forehead in a final salute to the man who had changed all of their lives. Tears filled their eyes, even those of Mark and Nick, who had remained the most composed for the entire morning.

_Although the sun will never shine the same again_

_I'll always look to a brighter day_

_Lord I know when I lay me down to sleep_

_You will always listen as I pray_

The uniformed officers continued carrying the coffin, probably off to the burial site. The salutes finally came down, as the officers joined together, watching in silence while others began to emerge from the church.

Finally, Zoe approached Nick, clinging to his arm tightly. The others watched as she buried her face in the arm of the man she loved, causing him to turn and pull her close in his arms.

--------------------------------------

Kelly began to move off to the burial site, Joss being towed along behind her. A quiet voice called out to her. "Kelly?"

She spun to see Susan and Anna standing behind her, eyes shining with tears. Daisy and Sam stood behind their mother, both looking teary and very upset.

"You came," Kelly managed with one of the first genuine smiles that Joss had seen on her face in the last few days.

"Do you mind if we…come to the burial?" Susan asked softly, her voice quavering. Kelly's earlier contempt with them instantly softened. Suddenly, the anger that had mounted vanished. They did miss their father.

"Yeah," Kelly said with a nod, "Uncle Tom would like that."

--------------------------------------

PJ approached Amy, causing her to turn and face him with teary eyes. She looked up at him with a pleading expression on her face, the epitome of distress that he remembered well from her second-last night in town. He reached out tentatively, taking her hand and rubbing it gently with his thumb. A weak smile appeared on her lips.

"I didn't think it would be that hard," Amy whispered quietly, "I've been to police funerals before…normally it doesn't hurt that much." She looked away, fixing her gaze on Kelly and Joss, who were now joined by Tom's daughters and grandchildren as they headed off to the burial.

PJ followed Amy's gaze to the six figures disappearing around the back of the church. "It's always harder when it's someone you love." He rubbed Amy's hand again thoughtfully, trying to ignore the temptation to wrap her in his arms as he once would have done. "You know, I don't think any of us should be alone tonight."

Amy looked up to him and laughed weakly. "What exactly are you trying to say here, PJ?"

"Well…since Alex moved in with Susie, I've got two spare rooms and a mortgage." He looked at her pointedly. "You could always move in. Beats the pub."

Amy nodded. "Yeah…that sounds good." She paused, shaking her head in disbelief. "He's really gone, PJ," she whispered quietly, "how the hell are we going to cope with this? How the hell are we going to keep going now?"

PJ smiled at her, causing her heart to skip a beat. "We'll do it the way we always have, Amy," he told her gently, "our way."

He gave her hand one last gentle rub before moving off, probably to bid Nick and Zoe farewell, leaving Amy standing alone in the crowd, tears in her eyes. It was really over. The Tom Croydon era in Mt. Thomas had been closed. The torch had now been officially passed onto the next generation. It was their job to carry on Tom Croydon's legacy. And they'd do it their way.

_Thanks for all you've done_

_I've missed you for so long_

_I can't believe you're gone_


	12. Ep 3: A Gift From God Pt1

**Episode 3: "A Gift From God"**

**Summary: **_Amy and PJ investigate the death of Susie's newborn niece at the Mt. Thomas hospital. A grieving man places the lives of Amy and Sophie Ash in danger._

**Part 1**

**_Lyrics in this part come from "In Loving Memory" by Alter Bridge._**

Amy slowly stirred awake, rolling onto her side and brushing hair back from her eyes as she focused on the alarm clock on her bedside table. It was a little after three in the morning, the time that would always make her skin crawl. About two weeks ago, Tom Croydon was killed. It was enough to make her wonder if time would continue to always be measured as to when Tom died.

Beyond her closed bedroom door, she could see a crack of light. PJ mustn't be having much luck trying to get to sleep. Not that she blamed him. She pushed herself up and looked around her room. It was bigger than room seven of the Imperial Hotel, that was for sure. And nicer too. The alarm clock was on time, the TV had great reception and it was air-conditioned. What more could she ask for?

She picked up the picture that sat in pride of place beside her bed. It was of the police team from years back, the only photo she had with any of the team. She narrowed her eyes as she studied it intently. It was really old, there was no sign of Alex and Ben was still there. The group weren't nearly as cosy as they were in that photo she'd seen in a cardboard box in what was now Mark's office. Everyone seemed very uncomfortable with each other. If memory served her right, it might have been from Ben's farewell drinks. With the exception of Ben, Kelly and Joss, everyone else looked quite uneasy.

Her gaze fell upon Tom, who had really only come to the drinks for the sake of putting in an appearance. He looked cold and bitter, not the man she had joined her colleagues in sending off two weeks ago on a warm November morning. Yet, this was the only picture she had of Tom. She cursed herself that she had never thought to take more photos of her colleagues and – dare she say it – friends. Especially now, when all she had left of the man who had come to be quite like her father was an image of the twisted and bitter man who she had first met, not the kind and gentle Senior Sergeant she had missed. But she still would never be able to part with the picture. Not when it was the only one she had of the Boss.

_I carry the things that remind me of you_

_In loving memory of the one who was so true_

Amy set the photo back on her bedside table and padded out into the kitchen of the house she now shared with PJ, to find him sitting at the bench, tracing the rim of a glass of milk with his index finger. He looked up at her, his eyes brightening slightly.

"Sorry," he apologised quietly, "I hope I didn't wake you."

She shook her head as she joined him at the bench, leaning forward against it as she focused down on the bench's surface. "Nah," she said with a smile, "I can't really sleep. Too hot."

"Yeah," PJ agreed, taking a swig of his glass of milk. Condensation dripped onto the bench from the base of the glass, forming a small puddle in the centre of the circle marking where the glass had sat. "Horrible weather." He looked over to her, motioning towards his glass with his spare hand. "You want some?"

Amy shook her head, the smile fading. "I'll be right." She paused, just watching as PJ finished off the milk, leaving himself with a big white milk moustache. She reached up, gently brushing it away with her hand. She could have sworn that she could feel the electricity pulsing between them, the tenderness of the moment overtaking them as it had so many times before.

PJ rose a hand and wiped the rest that Amy had missed away with the back, smiling. Amy withdrew her hand, smiling weakly to herself. He turned away to the sink to clean his glass, while she lowered her gaze, wringing her hands with nervousness. No one said sharing a house with PJ was going to be easy.

--------------------------------------

Amy wandered into the muster room as she headed for the CI office, rubbing her eyes in the hope that it might clear up the fuzz from her brain. She hadn't gotten much sleep last night after she'd gotten up. Even from her bed, she could tell that she wasn't the only one not sleeping. PJ had been moving around all night, turning on music so softly Amy could barely hear it, turning lights on and off and moving things around in the dark.

She looked over to Susie and Alex, who were having a very heated discussion about the rosters. Not that that surprised anyone. Ever since the funeral, Susie and Alex seemed to be constantly at each other's throats. It was no secret that Alex resented his recent promotion while Susie longed for it. Amy felt a bit sorry for Susie, really.

She closed the CI office door behind her, looking over to PJ, who had dozed off on his own desk. He'd come in a couple of hours earlier than she had, after probably having given up on getting to sleep. She felt sorry for him.

"PJ?" she asked quietly, reaching down and giving his shoulder a shake. He jolted awake, looking up to her with tired eyes. "You look like you could do with a strong coffee…or maybe a scotch."

Judging by the small smile playing on PJ's lips, it was obvious that she wasn't the only one enjoying the irony of this situation, when it had played out in reverse all those years ago.

He pushed himself back in his chair as Amy sat herself down opposite at her own desk, brought in over a week ago. It still looked relatively bare in comparison to his own. While his was decorated with photos – the picture from Ben's farewell sitting in pride of place, oddly – her's clearly mirrored a successful detachment from a social life.

"I didn't sleep well last night," he explained as he surveyed her through weary eyes.

Amy laughed to herself, the laugh causing PJ's mood to lift slightly. It seemed to be bright. "I could tell." She smiled at him. "You know, your CD collection isn't half bad…"

PJ smiled broadly as he rested his head again in his hands. Amy came over and rubbed his shoulder. He looked up at her again with tired eyes.

"Go home," she told him firmly, "you look like the walking dead. Mark's a pushover, he'll let you go."

He motioned over their desks. "What if a new case comes in?"

Amy gently pulled PJ to his feet and pushed him towards the door. "Go home," she said, "I can manage on my own. I think I can handle CI in Mt. Thomas on my own for one day."

His smile faded as he grabbed his bag and headed across the muster room to Mark's office, where he apparently received the exact reception that Amy had anticipated. She smiled weakly as she looked over their office.

Well this would be interesting.

--------------------------------------

Susie hurried through the hospital corridors, pushing nurses and doctors aside as she went, calling rushed apologies over her shoulder. She finally reached the room she was looking for, and her eyes lit up at the sight of a man standing outside, pacing the floor anxiously. His worried demeanor immediately vanished at the sight of Susie.

"Suse!" he shouted. Susie peered through the glass pane in the door, where she could see a woman clearly in labour inside. "I can't believe it, it's finally happening!"

She grabbed his forearms, holding him still. "Calm down, Lochie. You're going to be bouncing off the walls in a minute." She found it difficult to contain her own excitement. It was all she could do to keep it buried beneath a slight laugh when she spoke and a beaming smile. "Hey…settle down…"

Lochie pulled away, running an anxious hand through his golden blonde hair. His eyes were bright, constantly darting back through the glass pane. "I can't believe I'm going to be a daddy!"

"Hey!" Susie chimed, her heart skipping a beat in her chest. "I'm going to be an aunty, you know!"

Susie fixed her brother with a gaze that she hoped would calm him down, only to realise that she couldn't even keep herself calm. She instead pulled him into her arms, squeezing him tightly.

Two figures appeared from within the room, one was the familiar Sophie Ash, the other a male figure who wasn't so familiar to Susie. Susie pulled away from her brother, her excitement threatening to bubble over.

"Congratulations, Mr. Raynor," the male doctor said, his smile causing his forehead to wrinkle back up into his balding hair line. "It's a little girl."

Lochie shoved past the doctors and into the room to be with his wife. Susie stood on tip-toes to see the excited new parents crowding around their beautiful baby girl. Her smile suddenly attained a saddened, downtrodden quality. At this rate, she was never going to get to be the protective mother she wanted to be.

Sophie approached her, using the back of her hand to push a strand of blonde fringe back from her eyes. "Everything went well, Susie," she explained, "a textbook labour. You've got a beautiful niece."

Susie found pride creeping into her face. "Thanks," she replied, chuckling slightly.

Sophie nodded to Susie before leaving, the male doctor in tow. Susie stood in the doorway to her sister-in-law's room, watching Lochie gently stroke his daughter's head, pushing away thin strands of golden blonde hair. The baby girl in their arms watched them with wide blue eyes. Susie felt a familiar pang rush through her heart. Lochie's little girl meant that she was the only one without her own children.

--------------------------------------

Susie returned to the station, clutching the keys to her car tightly in her hand. Mark rose his head from his pigeon-hole in the muster room, probably searching for his Senior Sergeant exam study papers, following her with his gaze.

"How are they doing?" he asked, watching as Susie tossed her keys onto her desk and flopped back down in her seat. Alex looked up at this, watching Susie forlornly.

"Both mother and daughter are doing well," Susie replied with a smile, "they've decided to name her Christine Susan Raynor."

Mark chuckled to himself. "I can think of a certain red-headed publican who would be happy to hear that."

Susie looked up at Mark. "I think the reason they picked Christine was because she was born so close to Christmas."

"Either way, it's a nice name," Mark said with a shrug as he gave up on finding his papers and headed back into his office, closing the door softly behind him.

Alex leant over his desk and closer to Susie's. "You alright?" he asked quietly, "you seem a bit…"

Susie fixed him with an impatient expression. "Overwhelmed?" she finished. "just hard to believe that time can fly so quickly, that's all. It only feels like yesterday that Lochie and Dianna were telling me that they were having a baby…"

"Yet it feels like an eternity since…" Alex trailed off, realising that he didn't need to say it. Susie looked away, biting her bottom lip nervously. They both knew that he was going to say 'since the Boss died', but both knew that it was the last thing that needed to be said. Now at least.

--------------------------------------

Amy's eyes lit up as the phone rang on the corner of her desk. She couldn't hide the smile as she picked up the receiver and held it to her ear. "Mt. Thomas CI, Senior Detective Fox speaking…oh, hello Sophie…"

She sat forward, her brow furrowing as Sophie spoke on the other end of the phone. "Oh…I see…" Her eyes darted up and out into the muster room, where she could see Susie trying unsuccessfully to return to her work. "Oh my God…" Amy shook her head in disbelief, nervously beginning to bite her top lip. "How am I meant to tell her…she'll be devastated…Yeah, I'll be down as soon as I can. Thanks, bye."

Amy sat the phone down in its cradle, massaging her temples furiously with her hands. "Oh God…" After several minutes of stunned silence, Amy finally drew to her feet and opened the door to her office, beckoning to the blonde Senior Constable sitting in the muster room. "Susie, could you come here please?"

Susie looked up in surprise and nodded, unable to mask the spring in her step as she joined Amy in her office, closing the door behind her. "What's going on? A job?"

The look of utmost and sincere sympathy passed through Amy's features, causing to Susie to recoil slightly. "Amy? Is something wrong?"

Amy shuffled her feet awkwardly, struggling to retain eye contact with Susie. "Sophie just called from the hospital…"

Susie fixed Amy with an expectant expression. "And?"

"It's about your niece," Amy explained solemnly. "Apparently there's been some sort of accident."

Hot tears welled in Susie's eyes, threatening to spill out over her cheeks. Those were never good words to hear together in one sentence.

Amy reached out, gently holding Susie's wrist, knowing and expecting that an outburst of emotion was coming soon.

"She was found on the floor of the nursery," Amy finished quietly, "Sophie thinks that there may be brain damage. She's in intensive care."

Susie began shaking her head, sending strands of blonde hair flying around her face. "No, no…"

Amy grabbed Susie's other wrist, tightening her grip slightly. "Sophie thinks that she may have been dropped."

Amy's words went unheard by Susie, who was now thrashing to pull herself free of Amy's grasp. Amy held tight to her female colleague as tears began to pour down her cheeks and her voice lost all of the calmness that had made Susie such a good copper.

"How did this happen?" Susie begged as she finally gave up on fighting Amy and looked at her with pleading eyes. "She was fine half an hour ago! Amy! Tell me what happened!"

As Susie became a dead weight in her arms, Amy shifted her weight so as to be able to support Susie's as well. She gently pulled the blonde into her arms, rubbing her back awkwardly. She wasn't used to offering this sort of comfort to people.

"We'll find out what happened, Susie," Amy soothed gently, shifting Susie slightly in her arms. "We'll find out why this happened, I promise."


	13. Ep 3: A Gift From God Pt2

**Part 2**

**_Lyrics in this part come from "Gentle Gentle (Life Of Your Life)" by Rebecca Lavelle._**

Susie raced down the hospital corridor for the second time that day, only this time, it wasn't excitement that fuelled her steps. She could see her brother sitting in a plastic chair outside his wife's room, his head buried in his hands. Sophie stood beside him, gently rubbing his shoulders and speaking to him in a soothing voice. Lochie's eyes widened at the sight of Susie. He sprung to his feet and launched himself on his sister, letting her pull him tight into her arms and hold him.

Amy followed Susie down the corridor, walking so briskly to keep up with Susie's sprint that her hair was whipped off her face and flew along behind her. Sophie approached Amy, only to be met by a confused expression.

"What the hell happened?" Amy asked, her own eyes filled with small tears of sympathy for her colleague standing just metres away.

Sophie shrugged, her face blank and mimicking Amy's sympathy for Susie.

"I have no idea how this happened at all." Sophie replied, pushing a strand of blonde hair from her eyes as she did so. "One minute Christine is in her cradle, sleeping and fifteen minutes later I go back to check on her and I find her on the floor beside it."

"Is she going to be okay?" Amy asked, clutching her clipboard protectively to her body. Sophie replied with her earlier shrug.

"She'll be lucky if all she's sustained is minor brain damage," Sophie explained quietly, "she wasn't breathing when I found her…"

Amy opened her mouth to press on with questions, only to notice that Sophie was far more interested in Susie and Lochie who had since broken apart and were heading down the corridor, perhaps for some privacy. Amy spun to watch them as they left the same way that she and Susie had just come.

"God, I hope they're going to be okay," Sophie mused softly, "we had to sedate Dianna, she was so distraught. Lochie's barely said five words since we told him."

Amy began to bite her lip nervously, silently regretting her decision to make PJ go home. Susie and PJ had a strong bond between them, something that had once been in the majority at the station after the bombing. Tom, PJ, Ben, Susie and Jonesy had all had that special connection in having been members of the old station. Yet, over the years, they had dwindled down to two. First Ben had moved to Perth, then Jonesy to Melbourne and finally Tom had been killed. PJ and Susie knew each other well. He'd know what to say to her.

"What the hell kind of person drops a baby on the floor then just leaves her there to die?" Sophie asked, running a shaky hand back through her hair. Amy was snapped back to reality as she turned back to the doctor in front of her.

"Who was on duty in the nursery at the time?" Amy asked gently, opening her clipboard and balancing it on her left arm.

Sophie shrugged thoughtfully. "Just me…and one of the nurses, Danielle Beaumont. She might know something. I just don't see how anyone could have dropped a baby by accident or not and just leave her there…"

Amy noted down the name and closed her clipboard, reaching over to rub Sophie's arm supportively. "We'll work it out, Sophie," Amy promised quietly, "trust me."

Sophie nodded as she spun on her heels and headed back off to her office, presumedly, leaving Amy standing alone in the corridor. Amy walked over to the door, leaning in to the glass pane. Through it, she could see Dianna Raynor lying in her hospital bed, curled up in a ball on her side, shaking every now and again as she slept. As she watched the grieving mother, Amy couldn't help but feel tears of sympathy fill her eyes. No person on earth deserved this to happen to their child. And certainly not like this.

--------------------------------------

Susie looked over to Lochie as they sat side by side in his car, neither brave enough to speak. As much as she had tried to distance herself from her sister-in-law's pregnancy, she couldn't help but feel as attached to Christine as Lochie and Dianna. After all, her nieces and nephews were probably about as close as she was ever going to get to her own children at this rate.

"Christine will be fine," Susie whispered quietly, causing Lochie to look up suddenly. He still didn't face her, instead choosing to look ahead out the windscreen. "The staff here are some of the best. They'll make her better…you'll see."

"Suse, she has brain damage," Lochie reminded coldly. Susie couldn't help but feel a little frightened. Lochie was always the most volatile of her brothers when he was upset. While the others would simply take out their anger on the nearest inanimate object and be done with it, Lochie bottled things up until he finally snapped. He may usually be the most optimistic and happy-go-lucky, but he had a certain threshold of what he would take before he lost it.

"There are plenty of people out there who live perfectly good lives even with brain damage," Susie whispered quietly, "I remember one man, Clancy, who used to be the school crossing guard. He had a wife and a daughter. He was happy."

Lochie still wouldn't meet Susie's gaze. "And where is this Clancy now?"

Susie found herself looking away, closing her eyes as she tried to fight back grief long dealt with. "He was killed when our old station was bombed."

Lochie opened the door to his side of the car, climbing out slowly. "Great example, Suse," he mumbled sarcastically, "you've made me feel so much better."

Susie called after her brother as he slammed the door and stormed back over to the hospital. "Lochie!" she cried desperately, "Lochie! Please come back! Lochie!"

And as Lochie disappeared back inside the hospital, Susie hit the steering wheel hard, swearing loudly as she did so.

--------------------------------------

Alex leant in closer to the radio, his voice shaking slightly. With all the bad vibes between him and Susie lately, whenever the smelly stuff really hit the fan, they were always there for each other.

"God…how's Susie going?" he asked.

Amy held her radio closer to her mouth as she sat down in the same plastic chair that she had found Lochie Raynor sitting in earlier. "Not good. I think she's off with her brother…or not…" Amy trailed off as Lochie returned to the corridor, with no sign of Susie anywhere. "Anyway, I need a uniform to come over here so I can speak to the nurse who was on duty."

Alex glanced back over the muster room, his gaze immediately settling on Kelly who was sitting at her desk, apparently trying to ignore the messages that Joss kept slipping over his desk towards her. He called out to her. "Hey, Kel, you mind heading over to the hospital? Susie's niece has been injured and Amy needs a uniform."

"What?" Kelly responded as she climbed to her feet in surprise. Alex just shrugged and motioned to the door.

"Just go Kel," he told her as firmly as he could, "first lesson of life under Alex Kirby, don't ask questions."

Kelly mumbled under her breath as she grabbed the keys to the patrol car and disappeared through the doorway, causing Alex to incur a dirty look from Joss for his troubles.

Alex returned to the radio. "Kelly's on her way, Foxy," he explained, "you'll have to explain what's happened when she gets over there. She doesn't know what happened." He glanced over to Susie's desk, where he could see pictures of her large family sitting on her desk. "Do you think Susie is going to be alright?"

Amy shrugged weakly. "I can't say. Look, I've got to go. I'll let you know if anything happens."

Just as Amy was about to sign off, Alex interrupted. "Do you want me to call PJ in?"

Amy could feel indignation rising within her. "Alex, I'm just as capable of handling a case as PJ is. Let him sleep." Amy rolled her eyes as she momentarily lowered the radio. Whatever Alex's reply had been, it went unheard as she finally rose the radio to her mouth. "Mt. Thomas portable, back on channel."

--------------------------------------

Kelly followed Amy as she walked briskly to the nurses station of the hospital. Her eyes shone with surprise.

"How could that happen?" she asked quietly, causing Amy to shrug in reply.

"I don't know," Amy replied, "but I'm going to find out if I have to move heaven and earth to do so."

A woman with frizzy strawberry blonde hair emerged from the nurses station, a half-eaten sandwich in her hand. "Can I help you?" she asked with a mouthful of salad sandwich.

"Do you know where we could find Danielle Beaumont?" Amy asked, adjusting her clipboard in her arms. Kelly stood behind Amy's shoulder, shifting her weight nervously.

The woman nodded. "You've found her," she replied, "I'm Danielle Beaumont…is there anything I can help you with?"

"Yes, actually, there is," Amy said as she looked Danielle up and down. It was difficult to believe that a woman would be capable of knowingly leaving an infant to die on a hospital floor. "You were on duty this morning in the nursery?"

"Yeah…your point is?"

"A baby girl was dropped this morning in the nursery and wasn't found until about fifteen minutes later once she had stopped breathing." Amy explained, earning a gasp from Danielle.

"Those poor parents," Danielle whispered quietly.

Amy tried to stop the emotion from returning to her face. She had to remain logical and calm. "She's alive, but only just. She's going to have major brain damage at the best."

Danielle swore quietly under her breath before looking back to Amy and Kelly. "So what did you want from me?"

"We'd like you to come back to the station with us and answer some questions, if you wouldn't mind," Amy said as she pulled her clipboard tightly to her chest. Danielle gave a nod and let herself be led down the corridor by Amy. The detective turned back to Kelly quickly. "Ah, Kel, can you see if you can find Susie? Let her know that we're heading back to the station if she'd like a lift."

"What about the patrol car?" Kelly asked, gesturing out to the car park with her hand.

"You can drive it back if you like," Amy answered as she disappeared around a corner, leaving Kelly to find Susie wherever she had gone off to.

--------------------------------------

Amy ushered Danielle Beaumont into the interview room and switched the sign to 'Occupied' as Kelly approached her. She spun to face the younger blonde. "Where's Susie?"

Kelly pushed a strand of blonde hair from her eyes as she shrugged. "She said she wanted to hang around for a bit, see if Lochie and Dianna needed her around. Told me that we had to find out who had done this to her niece."

Amy sighed as she bit her lip anxiously. She finally turned to the interview room door. "You wanna help out with the case?"

Kelly's eyes lit up at the suggestion. She nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah, sure!" Kelly chimed as she followed Amy inside the room and closed the door behind her.

--------------------------------------

Amy sat back in her seat, surveying Danielle coolly. Kelly sat beside her, mirroring Amy's steely expression as best she could. Amy poised her pen at the top of her page.

"Were you in the nursery from about 10 this morning to about 10:30?" Amy asked.

Danielle shrugged, looking around with slight nervousness. Finally, she shook her head. "No," she admitted, looking up to Amy with guilty eyes. "I snuck out for a smoko."

Amy resisted the temptation to roll her eyes as she looked at the woman before her. "Can anyone confirm this?"

"No," Danielle said dismally as she shook her head again, "I generally try not to let anyone see me out for a smoke. They all think I've given up."

Amy noted this down and leant forward across the desk. "Did you see anyone in the nursery at this time? Anyone who might have accidentally dropped Christine Raynor?"

Danielle shook her head firmly. "Definitely not," she answered with conviction. "Not one person in this hospital would do anything like that." She looked to Amy with firm eyes. "Nobody did this. I know it."

--------------------------------------

Kelly jogged along behind Amy as she stalked back to the CI office, barely managing to stop the door before it slammed closed behind the detective. Amy sat down at her desk, grabbing the closed laptop sitting on PJ's side of the desk and pulling it over. The blonde leant against the window.

"What are we going to do now?" she asked as she folded her arms against her chest.

Amy looked up to Kelly as her fingers began to dance along the laptop keyboard and mouse pad, typing in Danielle Beaumont's name. "We're going to see what sort of background our nurse has. So far we only have her word for anything."

"What about security footage?" Kelly appealed, her eyes shining. "Wouldn't there have been a camera in the nursery?"

Amy sighed sadly. "Malfunctioning camera. Looks like hospital maintenance can be just as slack as police," she explained. Her eyes suddenly darkened as a page loaded on her computer screen. "Well, looks like our nurse Beaumont has a history…"

Kelly bolted over, leaning in to read over Amy's shoulder. "History of what?"

Amy looked back up over her shoulder to meet Kelly's confused face. "Malpractice suits."

--------------------------------------

Susie held the coffee down in front of Lochie's face, startling him back to earth. He forced a smile and took it gratefully. She stood beside him for a moment, trying to decide just what to say, before sitting down gently in the plastic chair and reaching over to rub his back.

"Amy Fox is a good officer," Susie explained with a soothing voice, "if anyone can find out who is responsible for this, it's her."

"Yeah," Lochie mumbled coldly, "but can Amy Fox change what's happened to Christine?" He turned to face her, his usually bright and cheery blue eyes now dark and hunted. "Some doctor has done this to my daughter."

Susie shook her head, tears reforming in her eyes. "It may have just been an accident," she pleaded softly, "accidents happen."

Lochie shook his head. "Not like this they don't," he told her firmly, "someone did this. Someone has to pay."

"Lochie," she said warningly, shaking her head gently, "please don't…"

Susie's words were interrupted by the sound of an urgent beeping from the intensive care unit, the room where Lochie's little girl was being treated. He sprung to his feet, swaying slightly.

"What the hell does that mean?" he asked, appealing to Susie for information. She could feel her breath beginning to become ragged. She knew exactly what that meant. She also knew that Lochie wasn't going to like it.

Lacking a response from Susie, he took off down the corridor towards his daughter's room, followed closely by his sister. Finally, the reached a room where doctors and nurses had gathered around a tiny infant lying on it's back in a cot, each one's expression darker than the last.

The loud beeping suddenly disappeared, replaced by a long, loud drone. Lochie may not have understood what the other beeping meant, but he understood this. It meant that he was losing his daughter.

"No," he whispered quietly, backing away slowly. Susie approached him, wrapping her arms around his body, which felt amazing cold in against her's. She rested the side of her head on his shoulder, hoping that he might respond to her need for comfort. Instead his arms remained at his sides, his body frozen.

Sophie finally turned to face them as the other staff turned to the machines, pressing buttons until all the screens showed the same blackness that could mean only one thing. The blonde doctor shook her head as she stood before the two siblings, Susie clutching her brother close, hoping that it might help.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered sadly, her voice conveying what could only be the deepest sympathy. "We weren't able to save her. The damage sustained must have been more serious than her body was able to deal with." Sophie reached out to them gently, rubbing Lochie's shoulder that Susie hadn't already taken. He suddenly flinched away, causing Susie to jump back in surprise.

"Can I sit with her?" Lochie asked, his eyes blank and his voice surprising devoid of emotion. Sophie nodded as the other doctors and nurses vacated the room, leaving Christine lying still in the cot.

Susie stood in the corridor as the hospital staff dispersed, watching as Lochie stood beside his daughter's cot, gently pulling her into his arms and holding him close, kissing her forehead softly. She approached the doorway, resting against it to stop herself from crumpling to the ground. The grief hadn't really set in yet, she was still stuck in the same feeling of bewilderment that she had felt after Brad had been killed.

She couldn't tear her gaze away from Lochie cradling the body of his girl in his arms, singing to her softly. Christine Susan Raynor may not have spent more than an hour in this world, but she had changed more lives in that one hour than many would ever change in a lifetime.

_Life of your life_

_Is safe in your arms_


	14. Ep 3: A Gift From God Pt3

**Part 3**

Amy nodded as she held her mobile to her ear, sadness etched into her features. Kelly entered from the muster room, only to be silenced by Amy's hand.

"Thanks Sophie…how's Susie handling it?" Amy asked of the doctor on the other end of the phone. "Yeah…actually, we do have a very good lead. We'll be over later. Thanks again, bye."

Amy lowered the phone, stuffing it into her jacket pocket and looked up Kelly. The blonde shrugged pointedly.

"That was Sophie Ash," Amy explained, her voice blank and stunned, "Christine Raynor just died."

Kelly's face became an expression of horror as she shook her head in puzzlement. "Poor Susie," she whispered softly, "she must be devastated."

Amy nodded thoughtfully, biting her bottom lip nervously. "We need to speak to Danielle Beaumont again."

--------------------------------------

"Well," Amy declared as she sat down at the desk and leant forward, "seems you've got quite a history."

Danielle cursed quietly and looked away, mumbling something under her breath. Her calmness seemed to deteriorate quickly under the expectant glares of Amy and Kelly, her detective-in-waiting.

"Those malpractice suits are long in the past," Danielle explained in a very uneasy voice. "I only ever received minor disciplinary action."

Amy opened up her clipboard and thrust a piece of paper over to Danielle's side of the table. "So the death of Albert Joseph Young had nothing to do with the fact that you were hung over from a party the night before?"

Danielle picked up the piece of paper and looked up to Amy, her eyes shining with horror. "He was 79!" she protested. "He had a stroke for heaven's sake!"

Amy found the angry passion rising inside of her, the same thing that she hadn't felt for years. She had long decided that it was this passion that told her that she was in the right job. The fact that it was back told her that Mt. Thomas had been a good move. After all, it had disappeared just days after her ill-thought out move to Homicide.

"And you failed to alert the doctors that he was trouble because you were too busy throwing up your breakfast in the toilet bowl!" Amy said, her voice rising and her eyes glinting with anger.

Danielle opened her mouth to argue, but instead changed her mind and looked away. Amy opened her clipboard again and pulled out another sheet of paper. She skimmed through it quickly before turning it around and pushing it across to the nurse.

"Just last year, a suicidal patient in your care managed to jump out of a third storey window while you were out on a smoko," Amy pointed out coldly as she sat across. Kelly narrowed her gaze as she regarded Amy and Danielle. "You've got a long history of neglecting your patients and causing their deaths or further injury."

Danielle picked up the latest document that sat before her, only to promptly put it back and push it away. "You think I dropped that Christine Raynor, don't you?"

Amy gave a shrug as that angry passion bubbled within her. "You tell me. Did you?"

The nurse's face contorted into an expression of offence and disgust at Amy's suggestion. "No!" she exclaimed, appealing to Kelly for support. "She can't say that, can she?"

Amy glanced over to Kelly, a half-smile playing on her lips. She turned back to Danielle. "I just did, didn't I?" she said.

Danielle shook her head, rising to her feet. Her cool composure had all but shattered. "This is all a load of shit!" she snapped. "You lot are all protecting your own!"

"Our own?" Amy queried, her curiosity thankfully stifling a rather rude reply.

The nurse rolled her eyes impatiently. "That doctor who's right in your pocket, Sophie Ash," she explained in an annoyed tone. "She's got the authority, she probably dropped the kid and left her there."

--------------------------------------

Kelly closed the interview room door, turning to face Amy who was beginning to bite her thumbnail as her mind ran through the case. Even though she and Amy had never really been close, Kelly could tell that the hunched shoulders and nervous green eyes told the real story of what Amy was thinking. She was running out of leads in this case.

"She's probably just pointing the finger at Sophie to save herself," Kelly pointed out, hoping that she sounded like the voice of reason, "crims do it all the time."

Amy nodded, suddenly standing up straight. "I want to speak to Sophie anyway," she said, "maybe there was someone else on duty who got through to the nursery."

--------------------------------------

Susie approached her brother, gently massaging his shoulders. They'd taken Christine's body away and had directed the pair to a very quiet room, maybe even the hospital tea room. Lochie sat on a short red couch, hugging one of the matching cushions tightly to his body as he had held his daughter just minutes before. Susie had finally left her post beside a fish tank that ran along the side wall, where she had been watching the multi-coloured fish swim among the plants.

"Lochie," she soothed, bending down to bury her face in his shoulder. Lochie pulled away sharply. "Oh, Lochie…"

"Leave it, Suse," he told her firmly, shuffling along the couch and away from his sister.

Susie watched him with tears shining brightly in her eyes. He could be so hard to reach sometimes. "Lochie…"

He turned to shoot her a cold glare. "I said leave it," he snapped, his voice suddenly stern in a way that Susie had never seen before, even in one of his really bad moments. He was about to snap, she could feel it in her heart. She had that impending sense of doom that had overcome her so many times before that she now knew exactly what it meant. She hadn't known that when Brad had been paralysed or killed and when the station was destroyed with Jo inside, but she knew now.

Sophie Ash stepped inside the room quietly, looking at the pair with sympathy shining in her eyes. "I'm so sorry for what's happened," she whispered softly, her voice shaking slightly. "If you need to talk…"

Lochie shook his head, the threshold of what he was willing to take clearly crossed. He stormed over to Sophie. "You are going to pay for what happened to my daughter!" he shouted, his voice cold and forceful. "You are going to pay, bitch!"

"Lochie!" Susie screamed, as she followed her brother down the hospital corridor and out to the car park. She grabbed his arm, only for him to pull it away so sharply that she was sent flying to the ground. She barely managed to stop herself from hitting her head on the hard asphalt. "Lochie, please!"

However, he ignored his sister's plea and climbed into his car, pulling away and speeding off down the street away from the hospital, leaving Susie sitting on the ground with hot tears running down her cheeks and scared half to death that her brother was about to do something very stupid that he was going to come to regret.

--------------------------------------

Amy walked into the hospital, Kelly jogging along behind her as she struggled to keep up with the detective's fast pace. The pair caught sight of Sophie standing in the emergency ward, talking in a hushed tone with a nurse. The young nurse was shooed as soon as the doctor saw Amy and Kelly, forcing a smile for their sakes.

"How's the investigation going?" Sophie asked gently as she closed her clipboard and approached them.

Amy sighed, shuffling her own clipboard in her arms. "We know about Danielle Beaumont's history of malpractice suits," she explained, her voice tinged with frustration. "She seems to think that you might be responsible."

Sophie's mouth dropped open as her gaze travelled between Kelly and Amy. "I wouldn't…I could never…" she stuttered, shaking her head. "You don't believe that…do you?"

Amy opened her mouth to point out that she couldn't legally say, only to change her mind and shake her head dismally. "No," she admitted, "we were wondering if anyone else besides you or Danielle may have been on duty at the time when Christine Raynor was dropped."

Sophie leant against the wall nearby, combing her fingers through her hair thoughtfully. Finally, she looked up to the coppers, her eyes shining. "There was Dr. Liam Martin. He's the specialist that we called in when Dianna Raynor went into premature labour…"

Amy paused, her eyes beginning to sparkle as she glanced back to Kelly. "Is he still at the hospital?"

Sophie nodded. "He should be in the maternity ward. I think he might be visiting Dianna Raynor. Lochie took off a little while ago and Susie's out in the garden."

Amy nodded in response and motioned to Kelly. "Would you mind getting Dr. Martin for me, Kel?"

"No worries!" Kelly chimed as she disappeared down a corridor, leaving the two women standing alone.

Sophie turned to Amy. "Do you have kids?"

Amy felt a sudden pang rush through her heart and shook her head quickly, forcing a bitter laugh. "No," she answered, trying to keep the resentment out of her voice. "Not likely to ever have any either."

Sophie shrugged. "I dunno," she pointed out, "PJ seems to really have something for you…"

"And is that your professional opinion?" Amy asked, her tone becoming defensive.

"I'm just saying that maybe someday the pair of you could end up getting together and having a family," Sophie suggested with a shrug.

Amy nodded understandingly, now suddenly feeling a little guilty for stonewalling Sophie the way she had. "I'm sorry," she apologised softly, "it's just…I can't physically have kids."

The doctor withdrew quickly, shaking her head. "I'm so sorry, Amy," she said quickly, "I didn't know…"

Amy forced another bitter laugh and sighed. "Don't worry," she said weakly, "I've lived with it for half my life, I've accepted it."

Sophie nodded, lowering her gaze. Amy smiled weakly, looking away to the silver watch on her wrist, wondering just what was keeping Kelly. Suddenly, a cold and familiar voice spoke out from the main entrance from the waiting room.

"You killed my Christine!"

Amy and Sophie spun in the direction of the voice, only to see Lochlan Raynor standing in the doorway with a dark green bag pulled over one shoulder and tears running down his face. His brow was creased as he face stern.

"Lochie," Sophie said gently, approaching him slowly, "how are you going? Have you thought about seeing your wife…"

"I've thought and thought and thought and now I'm bloody sick of it!" Lochie snapped as he unzipped his bag and before Amy even had the chance to grab her gun from her belt, he had pulled out a black hand gun and had it trained on Sophie's chest. "I'm sick of thinking and now I want answers!" he shouted as Sophie backed away towards Amy, who was struggling to decide if grabbing her gun was worth the risk. "You killed my baby girl and now I want to know why!"


	15. Ep 3: A Gift From God Pt4

**Part 4**

Amy let her right hand hover over her gun, holding out her left hand as her body started to go into panic mode. Around her, the emergency ward was only just resisting pandemonium, pure terror being the only thing that was stopping total chaos from breaking loose.

"Look, Lochie," Amy said, trying to keep her tone calm and friendly, like they always said to at the academy. However, even after over thirteen years in the job, it hadn't gotten any easier. "We can talk about this calmly. You haven't gotten yourself in much trouble yet." She edged towards him slightly, pushing Sophie aside gently as she did so. "If you'd just put the gun down…"

"No!" Lochie snapped, jerking away from Amy, causing her to recoil slightly in fright. He held the gun out before him with both hands, his hands surprisingly steady. "Where has calm gotten me so far?" he demanded. "That bitch killed my Christine and you lot haven't done a damn thing about it!"

Amy gulped slightly, hoping to steady her breathing, which she was quickly losing control of. "We're still investigating," she explained, unable to tear her eyes away from the barrel of the gun, "we still don't know just what happened."

"Yeah, well I do!" Lochie shouted, causing a small child in a nearby bed to start to cry. Amy half expected Lochie to react badly to this, but he didn't. Instead, his face seemed to become even more resolved. "She dropped my daughter and you aren't going to do a bloody thing because she's got you right in her pocket!"

"We're in nobody's pocket, Lochie," Amy pointed out, meeting his eyes momentarily before her gaze travelled straight back to the gun. "Believe me, if Dr. Ash has a case to answer to, she will. And if someone else is responsible for what happened to your daughter, then they will face the full force of the law."

She began shaking her head, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. "You can't take the law into your own hands."

Lochie closed his eyes for less than half a second before fixing Amy and Sophie with his expectant glare. "Shut up!" he shouted, causing Amy to flinch slightly. "Just shut up! I don't want to hear any of your bloody cop talk, I want to know what happened to my daughter!"

--------------------------------------

Kelly opened the door to Dianna Raynor's room slowly, causing Dr. Liam Martin to look up in surprise. He gently rubbed the woman's hand. "She just got to sleep," he told Kelly in a whisper, "poor thing. Her husband's really not helping, either."

"Would you mind if we spoke to you back at the station?" Kelly asked, motioning out the door with her right hand. Suddenly, the male doctor's face paled and he began to shake his head. "Is something wrong, sir?" Kelly queried, fixing him with a curious stare.

Dr. Martin looked around, running a hand back across his head as he did so, mumbling to himself. Kelly continued to stare, her mind suddenly reaching a very firm conclusion.

"You were in the nursery this morning when Christine Raynor was dropped, weren't you?" Kelly asked, trying to keep the surprise from her voice. Dr. Martin didn't respond at first, before finally nodded reluctantly, still not willing to meet Kelly's eyes. "You dropped her, didn't you?"

Once again, she was met with a reluctant nod. Dr. Martin spun to face her, his eyes shining with tears. He shrugged weakly. "I was tired," he admitted in a shaky voice, "I'd been working nearly thirty hours straight. I didn't want to be involved with the Raynor baby, but Dr. Ash insisted that they needed a specialist and I was the only one who hadn't gone away for Christmas yet."

Kelly began shaking her head. "What were you doing in the nursery?" she asked with tears in her eyes. "You weren't meant to be."

He turned to face her, shrugging again in response. "The matron asked me to go and check on the nursery. She said that Danielle Beaumont was about as useful as a hole in the head and had probably gone out for a smoko or something."

Kelly nodded to herself, silently remembering Danielle's statement. "So why were you holding Christine Raynor in the first place?"

"She was crying," Dr. Martin explained in a weak voice, "I picked her up and started to rock her and next thing I know, I've nearly passed out from exhaustion and she's on the floor. I tried waking her up, I really did." He looked up to the ceiling, shaking his head. "But she just didn't move. I freaked out. Nothing like that has ever happened before. I just…had to get out of there."

"So you left here there?" Kelly asked, her eyes widening. "You left an obviously seriously injured newborn on the ground where she stayed for another fifteen minutes before she was found?"

Dr. Martin nodded, tears streaming down his face.

"Dr. Liam Martin," Kelly announced as she walked over and grabbed his wrist gently, "you'd better come back to the station with me now."

--------------------------------------

Kelly headed through the hospital to the emergency ward, Dr. Martin following her very willingly. For some reason, though, it seemed all too quiet. She crept up to the doorway leading into the ED cautiously and peered around, immediately wishing she hadn't. She couldn't see much through the crack, but what she saw was enough. She could see what was obviously the barrel of a gun and two figures, one with brown hair that was obviously Amy and another a member of the hospital staff, perhaps Sophie.

She swore under her breath and looked back to Dr. Martin. "Is there another exit?" she asked in a whisper, earning a nod from the doctor behind her.

"Yeah," he answered, grabbing her wrist gently, "I'll lead the way."

--------------------------------------

Kelly jogged around the back of the hospital towards the car park, suddenly stopping when she caught sight of a blonde in a police uniform sitting alone underneath an old tree.

"Susie?" Kelly asked as she raced over, grabbing Susie's shoulder and spinning her around.

"Kel?" Susie responded, her eyes wide. "What's going on?"

Kelly just shook her head, motioning towards the car park. "Someone's got a gun in the ED and Amy's in there," she explained, causing Susie to gasp in horror. "Just follow me."

--------------------------------------

Alex looked up as Kelly came bowling into the muster room from the car park, Susie and Dr. Martin in tow. He rose to his feet, folding his arms across his chest as Kelly struggled to find the words to explain what was going on.

"Kelly?" he asked, looking the three up and down. "What the hell is going on? I thought you and Amy went over to speak to Sophie."

Kelly looked at him pointedly. "We did," she told him firmly, "I went off to find Dr. Martin," she motioned to him as an afterthought, "and when I got back to the ED, someone had a gun on Amy and Sophie."

Alex looked away, swearing under his breath. Joss returned from the mess room, holding out a coffee to Alex that went ignored. He looked to Kelly with confusion in his eyes.

"What's going on?" Joss asked, looking at Kelly in concern.

Alex ignored Joss' remark and raced over to Mark's office, throwing the door open without even considering to knock.

"Everyone," he called, causing them all to look at him with the same concerned look on their faces, "we've got a hostage situation at the hospital and Amy's in there."

Mark nodded, obviously struggling to keep his composure cool as he motioned to the others. "Kelly, take the gentleman here through to the cell," he instructed, receiving a nod from the blonde in response. "Ah, Susie, I want you to inform the inspector of the situation. Let him know that we need urgent backup from St. Davids. Alex, help me get the gear ready." Mark then turned to Joss, almost as an afterthought. "Ah, Joss, could you call PJ in? I think his day off has been officially cancelled."

--------------------------------------

PJ stirred awake slowly, kicking the sheets off his legs as he did so. He passed a hand over his weary eyes before rolling over to meet the red glare of the alarm clock. It was about mid-afternoon already. He pushed himself up with a grumble and sat forward on his bed.

He hadn't been sleeping well since the Boss was killed. It seemed that every single night he'd wake up with the same nightmare, usually at about three every morning.

It was always the same. There'd be a crash from somewhere in the living room of the rectory and Tom would slowly get out of bed, mumbling something about stupid kids. As Tom would head down the rectory hallway, PJ would call after him, shouting warnings about Joe Kenny and his impending death. He would chase the Boss until they reached the living room, and then everything would start to move at double speed. Tom would struggle with Joe, be pushed back against the coffee table and be shot in the chest, sprawling to the ground. All through this, PJ would beat against an invisible barrier, trying to coax Tom into fighting from where he stood. Yet, every time it ended the same way – Tom saying something he couldn't quite hear and then everything fading to black. He'd always wake up, wondering if his screaming had been real or just part of the dream and hoping that he hadn't woken Amy up in the room next door.

All through the day, he could never get the images out of his head of two figures struggling, bullets, blood and Tom falling in the dark.

PJ pushed himself up slowly, padding out into the kitchen. The afternoon light streamed through the window, warming him slightly. He leant back against the bench, only to been disturbed by the sound of the phone ringing next to him. He picked it up and held it to his ear. "Hello?"

"Hey, PJ, it's Joss."

He stood up straight, narrowing his eyes in confusion. "Joss?" he asked. "What's going on?"

"Uh, PJ, we need you back at the station," Joss explained as he sat forward at his desk. "We've got a hostage situation at the hospital."

"Geez," PJ mumbled under his breath, "I take one day off and the whole place falls apart. What's the situation like?"

"It's, well…PJ – Amy's in there."

PJ suddenly felt his whole body freeze up and a cold rush run through his heart. Amy. Amy was in there at the mercy of God knows what. His Amy.

"PJ?" Joss asked, staring at the phone curiously. "You still there?"

PJ tried to gulp down the lump in his throat and nodded numbly. "Yeah," he mumbled, "I'm still here. I'll be there in five minutes."

Without waiting for Joss' reply, PJ hung up the phone and clutched it tightly in his hands before sending it flying at the nearest wall. As it fell to the ground with a thud, PJ massaged his temples furiously. This could not be happening.

--------------------------------------

PJ crouched down behind the patrol car with Mark and Susie, holding his gun in his right hand, ready to shoot if necessary. The two figures behind the car turned to him in surprise.

"Do we have any idea who the gunman might be?" Mark asked, looking over Susie and PJ. He earned a silent and slow nod from Susie.

"Lochie," she whispered, causing Mark and PJ to stare at her in bewilderment. She drew in a deep breath to steady herself and continued. "He's been ready to snap all day. I saw him go back into the hospital. It has to be him."

Mark looked away, momentarily gathering his thoughts, before he turned back to the two officers beside him. "We don't yet know that it's your brother, Susie, so we can't assume that it is him," he explained in what he hoped was his calming tone, "all we have to do is keep the situation contained until backup and SOG arrive."

"SOG?" PJ asked in horror, raising his eyebrows as panic seared through his body. "But Amy's still…"

Mark looked at him pointedly, noticing the mortified look on Susie's face at the thought of SOG anywhere near her brother. "You two know as well as I do that they are trained to deal with these sorts of situations. Chances are that Amy and Lochie will both make it out alive…not that it's necessarily Lochie in there at all."

PJ looked away, closing his eyes tightly as he mumbled a quiet prayer under his breath, not to any God but to Tom. A quiet prayer that he would do what he'd always done and keep them all safe and deliver Amy back to him in one piece.

--------------------------------------

Amy kept her left hand outstretched towards Lochie as he tried to keep the gun focused on both Amy and Sophie at the same time. "This isn't too bad yet, Lochie," she soothed, tears brimming in her eyes. "if you just give me the gun, then we can talk about this and get back to finding out what happened to Christine." She shuffled towards him nervously. "Come on, you don't really want to do this…"

He pulled away sharply, keeping the gun fixed on Sophie and Amy. "Don't tell me what I do and don't want to do!"

Amy backed away slowly. "Okay, okay," she told him gently, "nobody's telling you what you want." She glanced over to Sophie, who was watching with fearful wide eyes. "The longer this goes on, the worse it becomes," Amy pointed out, "what about Dianna? She needs you more than she ever has before. And what about when SOG arrive?"

"SOG?" Lochie asked, his grip faltering slightly.

Amy nodded eyeing off the gun as her heart continued to race in her chest. "Yeah," she explained, "they're trained to deal with situations like this. And believe me; you don't want to be around when they get here. Hell, I don't want to be here!"

Lochie just shook his head, his hair flying in all directions. Any last thread of composure disappeared suddenly without a trace. It suddenly occurred to Amy exactly what she was trying to do. She was trying to talk down a man with nothing left to lose.

--------------------------------------

PJ crouched behind the CI car, his eyes shining with fear. He couldn't really remember the last time he'd been this afraid of anything. At the very least, it had to be before Amy had left Mt. Thomas, maybe when she'd come running into the station with blood pouring from the back of her head, when Garth had cornered her in her hospital bed or when she'd been kidnapped by Steven Prior.

Beside him, Susie wasn't fairing much better. She clearly believed that it was her brother holding Amy and Sophie at gun point, even when she couldn't be sure. It wouldn't surprise him in the least if it was Lochie Raynor responsible for all of this, after all, Susie was very perceptive. It was these perception skills that would one day make her a very good Sergeant or a very good Detective.

He finally climbed to his feet and, gripping his gun in front of him as he had been taught at the academy, headed towards the hospital, ignoring the calls from Mark to return. Nearby from the other cars, the others were watching on in concern. Susie gave a roll of her eyes and followed him inside. PJ was like her big brother, she wasn't letting him go into a situation like this on his own.

--------------------------------------

Lochie paced the hospital emergency department floor, holding his gun tightly in his right hand and combing his fingers through his hair with his left. Amy could tell by the look in his eyes that he had lost it. Completely. In less than a day, he had gone from having everything in the world to live for to having little more than nothing.

She could feel Sophie begin to cling to her arm tightly in fear. Amy looked at the doctor out of the corner of her eyes, immediately realising that this was a very new experience for her.

Finally, it seemed that the doctor had had enough. "I didn't kill your daughter, Lochie."

He rounded on the two women standing before him, his eyes suddenly darker. He trained his gun on Sophie, while Amy struggled to decide what was her best course of action.

"You bitch," he spat in a harsh and bitter voice, something that sounded worlds apart from the warm and inviting tones that Susie had once told them about, "you lying, murdering bitch. You killed her!"

Suddenly, a gun shot sounded, causing Amy to scream as she jumped back, pressing her hands to her mouth in shock. Sophie clutched hard at her stomach, pressing on a wound that was quickly staining her usually flawlessly white coat a horrible bright red. Barely a second later, her legs had given way, causing her to crumple to the ground, curling into a ball as pain ran through her.

Two figures holding guns before them and wearing police vests raced through into the ED. Susie approached her brother slowly, holding her hand out towards him. "Lochie," she whispered, trying to disguise the horror in her voice, "give me the gun."

He stood there, staring at Sophie writhing in pain on the ground as a couple of nurses approached her tentatively, before finally relinquishing the weapon to Susie. She took it gently, wrapping her arms around him, only to have his torn from her arms by Alex as he slammed the cuffs on, giving him the usual spiel. Her eyes clouded with tears as she watched her brother be led away by her colleague.

Mark approached her. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked gently, earning a teary nod for his troubles.

"Yeah," Susie whispered as she stared after her brother forlornly, "I'll be fine."

While Susie had retrieved the gun from her brother and the nurses tended to Sophie's bullet wound, PJ had holstered his weapon and raced over to Amy, pulling her into his arms as tears began to stream down his face. He enveloped her tightly, running his fingers back up through her hair, clutching at her tightly as though she may disappear at any moment.

Amy let herself be swayed in PJ's arms, wrapping her arms around him loosely, her body and mind still trying to work out just what the hell had happened. Finally, she closed her eyes as she let her head rest in the crook between PJ's shoulder and head, amazed at how well they seemed to fit together in each other's arms as he sobbed, thanking Tom Croydon, wherever he was in the great beyond, that his prayer had worked and Amy was safe again in his arms.


	16. Ep 3: A Gift From God Pt5

**Part 5**

**_Lyrics in this part are from "Behind Those Eyes" by 3 Doors Down and "Tiny Dancer" by Elton John._**

PJ looked up as Amy and Kelly emerged from the interview room and returned to the muster area, Amy passing a tired hand across her eyes. Kelly flopped down at her desk, while Amy headed to the CI office, closing the door behind her.

"Dr. Martin made a full statement about this morning's incident," Amy told PJ, before he even had the chance to ask, "and Lochie made a full confession about deciding to kill Sophie."

PJ nodded to himself as he leant forward across his desk to Amy's as she sat down at her own. "A nurse called from the hospital," he explained, "apparently Sophie's out of surgery and should make a full recovery. She'll be back at work in a few days. She's very lucky."

Amy nodded as she let out a loud sigh, letting her head sink into her hands. PJ eyed her worriedly.

"I was really worried about you," he added, hoping that the tears were gone from his eyes, "you're my best friend and…" he trailed off, struggling to find a way to explain it without scaring Amy off as he had two and a half years ago, "I couldn't bear to lose you."

She forced a weak smile for his sake as she rose her head from her hands. "I'm not going anywhere, PJ," she said, her voice suddenly lacking the strength and force that it usually had in abundance, "not if I can help it."

--------------------------------------

Joss cast a quick glance around the muster room, which was completely empty, except for himself and Kelly. He decided that this was his chance. He leant over to her, lowering his voice.

"Kel," he began, causing her to look up in surprise, "I'm really beginning to get sick of all of this."

She shook her head in puzzlement, narrowing her eyes. "Sick of what?"

Joss rolled his eyes. "This, Kel," he told her firmly, "something happening and you pretending that it isn't."

"Joss," she pleaded, her eyes beginning to shimmer, "I don't know if I want this…"

She stood up and, wringing her hands in front of her stomach nervously, began to head off to the mess room, only to be met by a closed door. It looked like either Susie or Alex was in there, trying to deal with the day's events. She could feel him come up behind her, cutting off any route of escape.

"I really like you," Joss said, closing his eyes as he struggled to explain, "I've liked you since I first met you. Don't tell me you haven't felt it too."

Kelly drew in a deep breath and turned to face Joss, just shaking her head. "I don't know, Joss," she replied in a quiet and uncertain voice, "maybe…I dunno. But in-office relationships just don't work. Look at Susie and Ben! Susie and Jonesy! I can keep going, you know."

"Maybe we'll be different," Joss begged, closing in on the short distance between their bodies, "it can work out! Look at Jonesy and…"

"Joss!" Kelly snapped, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. He backed away slightly as he realised that this wasn't what Kelly wanted. This conversation wasn't something that she wanted to have with him. "I want to be a good cop," she told him in what she hoped was a strong voice, "and I don't want some relationship with a colleague to get in the way of that. Career first, love later, got it?"

With those words ringing through Joss' ears, Kelly pushed past him and disappeared, maybe off to find some secluded area in the station where she could go and sulk about their failed relationship. Meanwhile, he stood alone in the corridor just outside the mess room door, his head lowered and the touch of Kelly's lips on his still tingling two weeks on.

_As you turned to walk away_

_I saw another look in your eye_

_And even though it hurt like it did_

_I couldn't let this be a goodbye_

--------------------------------------

Susie opened the interview room door slowly, causing Lochie to jump to his feet in fright. As soon as he realised who it was, he relaxed. "Oh, Suse," he mumbled to himself, "it's only you."

She closed the door behind him, finally daring to meet her brother's eyes. "Where did you get the gun?" she asked sternly, her voice suddenly attaining a disciplinarian quality that she had once sworn she'd never use. Especially against her own big brother.

"It's licensed," Lochie assured her, "perfectly legal. I got it for protection after some bastard broke in one night and nicked off with Dianna's handbag? You'd remember that."

She nodded, but her expression didn't relax. "Where the hell did you get the idea in your head that you should take the gun into the emergency department and try to kill Sophie Ash?" she demanded. "Your little sister is a copper! You should have known better than anyone that it was only going to put you in prison!"

Tears filled Lochie's eyes as he shook his head, trying not to face his sister. Susie's composure broke shortly after as small tears began to run down her cheeks.

"I don't know!" he cried, his voice breaking as he spoke. "Christine was the best thing that ever happened to Dianna and me! She was our little miracle, like a gift from God! Surely you'd remember what it's like to have something so wonderful and perfect come into your life that is just has to be a gift from God. That's what you told me the day you married Brad. That he was your gift from God."

Susie shook her head, closing her eyes tightly momentarily to try to dispel the tears. Finally, she gave up and fixed her gaze somewhere out the permanently dirty interview room window. "I gave up believing in miracles and gifts from God long ago."

"Why?" Lochie asked, his eyes filling with confusion. "You were always the one who believed in good things happening to good people. You could always look out into a storm and see the rainbow."

"Because I worked out that it was all crap," Susie explained, shaking her head slightly, "I stopped believing when my husband was paralysed doing a job he loved and killed because he just couldn't cope anymore. And my best friend, police station, home and everything I owned was blown to pieces by a bunch of dirty, lowlife criminals looking for revenge against us for doing our jobs."

Lochie shook his head, reaching out to her in sympathy. He tried to pull her into his arms. "Aw, Suse…"

She jerked away faster than she ever had before, slapping him hard across the face. "Keep your hands off me!" she shouted, holding her hands up in defence. "You let me down, Lochie! You're my big brother and you let me down! At a time when all I wanted to do was help you and Dianna, you screwed us all up!"

"I didn't mean to…"

"You're going to jail, Lochie!" Susie told him hotly, her eyes shining. "You're going to be trailed for attempted murder and you're probably going to go to jail when Dianna and I needed you the most!"

Susie turned to walk away, only for Lochie to race over to her side of the interview room and grab her wrists pleadingly.

"Suse…"

"No!" she cried, spinning to face him, her face dark and stern. "As far as I'm concerned, you are no longer my brother!"

And with that, Susie turned and left, slamming the door hard behind her.

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Alex entered the mess room cautiously, where he could see Susie leaning against the window, staring into her coffee cup as if it held all the answers to all the mysteries in the world. He approached her tentatively, his heart paining to see the tears in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks.

"He probably won't do much jail time," he told her soothingly, causing Susie to meet his gaze in surprise. "He's got some pretty extenuating circumstances. And Sophie wasn't seriously injured. He'll probably only do a couple of years, maybe less."

"That's hardly the point, though." Susie pointed out with an uncertain shrug. "Sophie could have been killed today. Not to mention Amy and all of the emergency department. And what if they had been? We could have lost a detective two weeks after burying the Boss and…" She trailed off, shaking her head as she bit her bottom lip.

Alex closed the gap between them and took her left hand, taking it in his right. Susie smiled weakly for his sake.

"But they didn't," he explained, "Sophie's going to make a full recovery and Amy got out of there without a scratch. It all worked out for the best."

Susie shook her head, pulling her arm away and handing him her coffee. "No," she answered, "it didn't work out for the best. The best would have been if Lochie and Dianna were still together in that hospital room, cradling their little girl in their arms. I'm grateful that Amy and Sophie got out of there alive, but it could have worked out so much better than this, Alex."

He nodded as she headed past him. He turned to face her. "I guess I'll see you at home, then."

She smiled weakly at him in response. "Yeah, of course," she answered as she disappeared around the corner.

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PJ reached up, switching off his overhead lamp in the CI office, leaving Amy's as the only source of light in the station. It was late and everyone else had done the sensible thing and headed home to try and sleep off that horrible day. He looked over to Amy, who was scribbling hard at a piece of paper under the pretence of a report about the whole Lochie Raynor incident. He could see the dark bags under her eyes. She had probably been awake since three that morning when he'd awoken from a nightmare.

He approached her, gently switching off the overhead lamp, bathing her and her report in darkness so that the moonlight trickling in through the window was all the light they had. She drew in a deep breath. "I do have to finish this report you know."

"Yeah, I know," PJ told her gently, "but you also need a good night's sleep. Everyone else has gone home. It's been a big day. Nobody's going to care if the report isn't finished until tomorrow."

She forced a weak smile, lowering her gaze to her report, for all it mattered in the dark. "It's hard to believe that one accident has destroyed so many lives. Lochie, Dianna, Susie, Dr. Martin, Sophie…"

PJ leaned in close, so close that Amy could have sworn that she could taste his lips. It felt so familiar, so right…but yet just a little bit frightening.

"But there's still a future," he pointed out in a soft voice, "you and me…"

Amy pushed a strand of hair back from her face as she remembered Sophie's words. Was everything between her and PJ – whatever it was – so obvious that even someone she hadn't seen in two and a half years could pick it out? Had everyone already worked it out before she had?

"Maybe," she said with a shrug as she picked herself up, "would you…mind giving me a lift home? I don't know if I should be driving after today."

PJ nodded as he grabbed his keys off his desk and wrapped a kind arm around Amy's shoulders. She didn't push him away, instead enjoying the feeling of being near him. She hadn't felt safe in a man's arms for so long, but yet PJ made her feel protected and warm. He made her feel safe. Not that she'd ever tell him that.

_Hold me closer tiny dancer_

_Count the headlights on the highway_

_Lay me down in sheets of linen_

_You had a busy day today_


	17. Ep 4: Silent Night Pt1

**Episode 4: "Silent Night"**

**Summary: **_The Heelers' struggle to deal with their first Christmas without Tom is made even more difficult when a serial killer escapes from prison, Joss' mother arrives in town to find him an Italian girlfriend and Amy is brutally attacked at the police station._

**Part 1**

**_Lyrics in this part come from "Do They Know It's Christmas Time" from Band Aid and "You And Me" by Lifehouse._**

Amy looked at a dress hanging on a store coat hanger, turning the price tag around, only to wish she hadn't. In the years that had passed since she'd last bothered to go Christmas shopping, she'd forgotten just how damn expensive everything could be. She looked the blue dress up and down, deciding that however nice it was, Kelly would not be getting it for a present this year.

She adjusted her bag over her shoulder and rejoined the mad pack of last-minute shoppers as they rushed through the store, fighting over what was left after all of the smart shoppers had finished early. Normally, she wouldn't have even given Christmas shopping for her colleagues a second thought, but somehow, this year was different. Mark had decided a few days ago that buying presents for each other might be good for them, boost team morale or something corny like that. But Amy had had to agree. With Jonesy's departure, Tom's death and the hostage situation a little under two weeks ago, present exchanging at the Christmas party sounded like a really good idea.

The only real flaw she'd found in Mark's plan was that buying presents for her colleagues wasn't the easy task she'd thought. Everything that seemed perfect for them – like that blue dress – were way out of her price range and everything else may as well have been junk.

"Didn't pick you for a last-minute shopper."

Amy spun to see PJ approaching her from behind, carrying a semi-transparent blue plastic bag at his side. She eyed it off suspiciously. "What's in there?"

"Just a little present for our Acting Senior Sergeant," PJ answered, opening the bag for Amy to have a look. Her look of curiosity immediately faded to horror.

"Socks?" she asked blankly. "You're buying Mark a pair of socks?"

He closed the bag and nodded, a smile on his face. "Of course!" he pointed out. "The simplest way to give Christmas presents – buy everyone socks. Everyone always needs a new pair of socks."

She narrowed her eyes and shook her head. "Bit boring, don't you think?"

"Nah," he replied with a wink, "there's hundreds of different colours and patterns and everything. Besides…they're very easy on the wallet."

Amy tried to hide back the smile, but finally failed and burst out laughing. PJ's smile broadened at this. "Am I getting a pair of socks?" she asked with a chuckle.

He just shrugged cheekily. "Now, if I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?" He laughed at his own words and moved past her. "Anyway," he said, "I'm off to continue sock hunting. Enjoy!"

Amy caught herself laughing again as PJ disappeared into the crowd. Maybe this year would be the first Christmas in a long time that she would actually enjoy.

------------------------------------------

Kelly felt a warm rush go through her body as she brushed past Joss gently as she draped tinsel along the top of his desk. He looked at her, his eyes shining with a longing that she knew all too well. She felt it too. But she wouldn't act on it. She shook herself back to earth and continued to hang the tinsel, trying to keep her mind from drifting to Joss sitting at his desk, looking very lonely.

Joss watched as Kelly continued to decorate the muster room half-heartedly. He couldn't help but stare at her. She was beautiful. That one kiss with Kelly had felt more right than it had ever been with any other girl before. He couldn't believe that she really felt nothing for him, that she really did just care about her career. No matter how badly other in-office relationships had turned out in the past, surely they could balance their jobs and their relationship.

Either way, he refused to believe that it was over. Not when they had only just begun.

------------------------------------------

PJ hung his black leather jacket over Amy's big purple coat as he flopped down behind his desk. Amy looked up as he sat down, only to be met with a confused expression on his face.

"Now," he said as a cheeky smile spread across his face, "which blonde Constable got into the tinsel, I wonder."

"Mark pretty much had to beg her to decorate," Amy pointed out with a glum expression on her face. "Kelly wasn't really in the Christmas mood at all."

PJ nodded understandingly. "I can't say I blame her really," he admitted, "it's the first Christmas without the Boss."

Amy let out a heavy sigh and met PJ's eyes weakly. "It doesn't really feel much like Christmas, does it?" she asked, the previous day's Christmas cheer vanishing without a trace. She earned a slow shake of PJ's head in response.

"This shouldn't be Christmas," he conceded, "it doesn't feel right without Tom trying to keep us all focused on work or organising the Christmas party with Chris."

Amy looked out sadly into the muster room, where Kelly had apparently finished decorating, or had given up, and was now sitting back at her desk, probably trying to concentrate on paperwork. You knew that life was bad when even Sunshine Kelly couldn't fake a smile.

_Do they know it's Christmas time at all?_

------------------------------------------

Mark wandered over to Alex, unable to tear his eyes off Susie, who was sitting at her desk, slowly and methodically tidying and re-tidying her desk. He leant over to Alex, unable to hide the concern in his eyes. "Should she be working?"

Alex looked up to Mark in surprise, before shrugging and looking at Susie, who didn't respond to their whispers. "I don't think so, but she's so bloody stubborn that I can't get through to her," Alex answered, beginning to chew on the end of his pen, "I mean, you can't have to arrest your brother and be totally unaffected."

"I noticed that she hasn't requested Christmas leave," Mark pointed out, motioning to the open request book resting in Alex's lap. He looked down at the very empty list of requests for time off over Christmas.

Alex forced a bitter laugh. "No one has requested Christmas leave. I've just rostered everyone on Christmas day. It doesn't feel like Christmas time without the Boss," he reasoned. Mark nodded thoughtfully and motioned around the station, causing everyone to look up.

"Everyone, come over here please," Mark called, "Amy, PJ – you too."

The uniformed officers gathered in the muster room formed a tight group around where Mark stood next to Alex, while Amy and PJ emerged from their office and stood in behind, PJ with his arms folded and Amy perching herself on the edge of Joss' desk.

"Now, I understand that this may not exactly feel like it's going to be the greatest Christmas ever," Mark explained, hands on his hips, "but we have to make the most of it. No matter how bad this year has been in parts, we all have to stick together and at least try to celebrate Christmas. I think that we should still have a Christmas party at the Imperial Hotel. Whoever goes to get the lunches can run it past Chris."

The officers all looked around at each other, each one looking more doubtful than the last. Amy turned to PJ, who was shuffling his feet slightly.

"We've already agreed to share presents," Mark continued, "so perhaps we can have an exchange at the party. A drink and celebration with good friends…it sounds like a good way to spend this Christmas."

Mark's speech was interrupted by the sound of the reception area buzzer, which caused several of them to jump in surprise.

"I'll grab that," Alex offered as he jumped to his feet and scampered away, closing the door out to the reception area before he could hear Joss give a mumble of disbelief in Italian when he worked out who the woman at the front desk was.

------------------------------------------

Alex approached the front desk, leaning over expectantly. "I'm Acting Sergeant Kirby, is there anything I can help you with?"

The woman standing opposite returned his expectant stare, her large size making Alex recoil slightly. There was something about her face that was very familiar.

"Is Guiseppe Peroni in?" she asked, her voice tinged with a heavy Italian accent.

Alex cocked his eyebrows in surprise. "Guiseppe?" he asked in confusion. "Peroni…ah! You mean Joss."

"Yes," the woman said in an annoyed tone, "Guiseppe."

The door behind Alex opened suddenly as Joss stepped through, trying to close the door quickly behind him before any of his colleagues decided to look.

The woman's eyes lit up. "Guiseppe!"

Alex sniggered as he turned to Joss. "Guiseppe?" he teased with a smile. "Well, Guiseppe, I'll leave you to it, shall I?"

Joss rolled his eyes as Alex disappeared into the muster room, but not before giving a final laugh.

"Guiseppe," he said to himself, his smile broadening as he did so.

Joss shuddered at the thought of what Alex Kirby was likely to do with his newfound knowledge and looked to the woman standing opposite. "Mama?" he asked as he opened the swing-top counter for her to step through. "What are you doing here?"

"Christmas time is family time," Mrs. Peroni said as she joined her son on the other side of the counter. "Yet you never invite me to town! Why haven't you invited me to town yet?"

Joss rolled his eyes. "I wonder why," he mumbled under his breath, "Mama, you really can't be here."

"Why not?" she asked, adjusting her handbag. "I am allowed to visit my son at his workplace, aren't I?"

"Not when I'm on duty, no," Joss answered as he opened the swing-top counter again and ushered his mother out. "You know where I live, just go there and I'll be there after work." He dug through his pocket, throwing her a key. "Here, go."

Mrs. Peroni shook her head. "This is no way to treat your mother, Guiseppe!"

"Mama," Joss pleaded, "just go, we're run off our feet." Mrs. Peroni finally conceded defeat and left, mumbling something in Italian about disrespectful sons as she did so. Joss sank forward, hitting his forehead against the counter. "And don't call me Guiseppe!"

------------------------------------------

PJ sat back at his desk, swinging back and forth slowly. He couldn't take his eyes off Amy sitting opposite, her hands dancing over the laptop keyboard, probably very engaged in a game of solitaire or hearts. It seemed that Mt. Thomas always stopped over Christmas.

'_Cause it's you and me and all of the people_

_With nothing to do, nothing to lose_

_And it's you and me and all of the people_

_And I don't know why I can't keep my eyes off of you_

He had long worked out why he couldn't look away. After Amy had left Mt. Thomas, he'd spent long nights trying to understand just what was going on inside his head, finally trying to come to terms with Maggie's death and the bombing. He'd had to. If he was to ever have another chance at being with the woman he'd come to long for, then he was going to have to really make some life changes. And he had. He'd finally done what Jo had pestered him to do for years and had started doing more exercise. And he'd finally done what he should have after Maggie died and asked for help.

He'd missed Amy over those two and a half years she'd been away. When she'd left, he hadn't expected her to stay away that long, but she had. And she'd turned into all of those other officers who left, promising to keep in touch, and never had, like Tess, Dash and Ben.

His mobile phone ringing on his desk startled PJ back to earth and Amy from her computer game. He lunged for it, rolling his eyes at Amy. "Hello, Mt. Thomas CI. Senior Detective Hasham speaking…"

On the other end of the phone, sitting in his air-conditioned Melbourne office, Nick leaned back in his chair, his remote control pointed at the TV, turning up the volume slightly. "Mate, are you watching the news right now?"

"Nick?" PJ asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion. "What's going on? Of course I'm not watching the bloody news, I'm at work."

Nick rolled his eyes. "Then turn the news on right now," he instructed firmly. "And don't ask why, Patrick Joseph, just do it."

PJ rolled his eyes again as he headed out into the muster room, causing Amy to follow him in curiosity. He grabbed the remote off the TV trolley in the corner of the room and switched the TV on, instantly grabbing the attention of the other officers in the room. They all turned to watch the TV as PJ sat back on the edge of the nearest desk.

The newsreader was talking about some prisoner who had attacked a prison guard with a knife and had escaped a couple of hours ago. A serial killer, apparently. PJ's confusion suddenly turned to real concern when he heard the name. Steven Prior. He looked back to Amy worriedly. Her face was blank and her eyes dark.

He returned his gaze to the TV, just in time for the newsreader to change the subject to the next day's Melbourne forecast. He switched the TV off, the phone still at his ear.

"You and Amy worked on that case, didn't you?" Nick asked from his Melbourne office, where he had switch off the TV and had now crossed the floor to the window overlooking the busy city street below. "I remember one of my Homicide colleagues, Garth Henderson, was down there when the case came up. Got promoted as soon as he got back to Melbourne."

PJ nodded, before remembering that Nick couldn't see him. He sighed sadly. "Yeah, Amy and I worked on the case."

"Would there be any chance of this Prior guy heading back to Mt. Thomas?" Nick queried as he closed the blinds and turned back to look at his other colleagues milling around the main office.

PJ shrugged, again forgetting that Nick couldn't see him from his Melbourne Homicide office. "I dunno," he replied dimly. He found himself once again turning to Amy, his heart pounding in his chest. While Steven Prior was out there, Amy's life was in danger. After all, he'd tried to kill her when he was last on the loose. Twice. "Thanks for that, mate. Bye."

"Yeah, good luck," Nick said as he hung up his mobile, clutching it tightly in his hands. Surely Amy and PJ could handle this. He didn't like thinking about what could happen if they couldn't.


	18. Ep 4: Silent Night Pt2

**Part 2**

**_Lyrics in this part come from "Can You Feel The Love Tonight" by Elton John and "Silent Night"._**

Amy followed PJ back into their office, closing the door behind her. She closed her eyes momentarily, awaiting what she knew was coming. PJ turned to her, his eyes shining.

"I don't think you should be anywhere near this investigation," he told her firmly.

"What investigation?" Amy demanded in response. "It's not our investigation to begin with!"

PJ drew in a deep breath. He could feel a yelling match coming on. "He'll come back to Mt. Thomas!" he pointed out. "He'll come back to Mt. Thomas and he'll come after you!"

"No he won't!" Amy replied in a determined voice. "He's not a threat to me! He'd have to be mad to come back to Mt. Thomas!"

"He is mad!" PJ cried, losing whatever grip he had had on his protective nature. "He tried to kill you, Amy! Not just once but twice! He'll do it again!"

Amy lowered her gaze, tears beginning to fill her eyes slightly. She hated yelling at PJ like this. It had only happened once before and sometimes she could still feel how hoarse her throat was afterwards.

"He's not a danger to me!" Amy shouted, PJ's yelling suddenly silenced. "He's only after the abusers now!"

He nodded, realising that their yelling match had proved all of nothing. He moved closer to her, rubbing her forearms gently as she drew in a shaky breath.

"I'm worried about you, Amez," he whispered so softly that Amy could barely hear, "I just don't want to lose you."

She smiled at him weakly, tears beginning to slide slowly down her cheeks. "You aren't going to lose me, Peej," she told him gently, "I promise. I'm not going anywhere, remember?"

He nodded as he tried as best he could to return her smile. "I know."

------------------------------------------

"I can't bloody believe this!" Joss lamented loudly as he pulled the patrol car to a stop at a red light, glancing over to Kelly sitting in the passenger seat, apparently trying her best to ignore him. "A serial killer just escaped from jail and we're sitting on patrol duty."

Kelly looked over to him, hiding the longing in her eyes behind nervousness. "You don't think he'd come back here, do you?"

Joss shrugged. "PJ obviously thinks he will," he pointed out, "I heard him and Amy having a yelling match in the CI office."

She gave a snort of laughter at this. "Joss, everyone heard it. Neither of them were being exactly private with what they were thinking."

He nodded as the light finally turned green and drove off, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel nervously.

"So," Kelly began, "what's your mother doing here?"

"Christmas," Joss answered simply, "and probably to try to find me a nice Italian girl to marry."

Kelly burst out laughing, shaking her head in disbelief. "Nice Italian girl to marry?" she laughed. "And you'd go along with it?"

Joss shook his head. "No way!" he exclaimed. "Especially not when…" he trailed off, suddenly realising what he had been about to say. It had been nearly two weeks but he still couldn't accept it. Not when Kelly so obviously felt the same way.

Kelly nodded, looking away, suddenly quietened. She pushed a strand of hair back behind her ear. "Joss…" she pleaded quietly. "It's not you…"

"Career first," Joss finished for her, "love later…right? I get it Kel."

She nodded slowly, looking back at him. It was then that she suddenly realised she was turning into everything she had once sworn she'd never be. As much as the job meant to her, love would always mean so much more.

------------------------------------------

Mark's head shot up at the sound of the phone ringing in his office. He glanced out into the muster room, slightly surprised. Alex was busy on the phone, probably trying to fob Tony Timms or Lee Cruikshank off onto Media Liaison while Susie was obviously trying to calm down a probably very panicked local. He snatched the phone up to his ear.

"Mt. Thomas Police Station, Sergeant Jacobs…" he paused, suddenly realising what he'd said. He shook his head sharply. "Acting Senior Sergeant Jacobs speaking…"

His brow suddenly furrowed as the person on the other end of the phone spoke.

"Sophie?" he asked in confusion. As Sophie continued to talk, he massaged his temples with his free hand. "Yeah, I'll get Amy and PJ over there. Yep, bye."

"Amy, PJ," Mark said as he appeared in the doorway to the CI office. They both looked up from their respective desks in surprise, Amy's eyes still a little red. "There's been an armed hold up at a servo on the edge of town. Apparently the shop assistant was cut with a knife."

PJ looked over to Amy with an 'I told you so' expression on his face.

"The victim's at the hospital," Mark continued, silently wondering if PJ's reaction to the news had anything to do with the yelling match that the rest of the station had been subject to earlier that morning. "Sophie's waiting for you."

Amy nodded. "Thanks Mark." As Mark retreated from their office across the muster room to his own, she turned to face PJ. "I know what you're thinking. It may not be Steven Prior."

"The offender had a knife," PJ pointed out as he climbed to his feet and grabbed his clipboard. Amy jumped up behind him.

"But robbery isn't Steven's style," she reminded him forcefully, "he was on a mission to stop abuse, not steal from a servo in the middle of nowhere!"

PJ grabbed her shoulders, drawing her close. "He'd need money though," he suggested, "if we he was going to continue with his 'mission'. What better way than by holding up a servo in the middle of nowhere?"

He turned to leave the CI office, making Amy desperate. "Steven's probably half way to Queensland by now!"

"This isn't like you," PJ said gently as he spun to face her, "you do realise you're defending the actions of a serial killer, don't you?"

She drew in a deep breath and fixed him with an expectant stare. The subject was officially closed.

------------------------------------------

PJ sat down gently on the end of the bed beside a young woman who had a large dressing taped to her right cheek. The woman regarded him with uncertainty.

"Now, Miss Bunton…" he began.

She shook her head promptly. "Prue," she told him. PJ nodded slowly, glancing back to Amy standing in the far corner of the room. She'd been told strictly to stay as far away from this case as possible. Not that she planned to do that of course.

"Prue," PJ corrected himself as he scribbled something down on his notepad, "did you know the person who did this? Was it someone you'd seen down the street or on TV or whatever?"

Amy gave a noise of disapproval from where she stood which went ignored by PJ.

Prue thought for a moment before shaking her head strongly, causing short brown curls to fly in all directions.

"Well, is there anything in particular you remember about this person?" he continued. "Maybe the colour of their hair or the way they were dressed?"

Prue again shook her head, before her eyes suddenly lit up. She nodded slowly. "Yeah…he had brown eyes. Wild brown eyes."

PJ looked back to Amy, eyebrows risen and looking a little fulfilled. Amy rolled her eyes, although she could understand why. Steven Prior had brown eyes.

------------------------------------------

Amy dumped her jacket on her desk as she fixed PJ with a bewildered stare. "Prue Bunton couldn't even remember what colour clothes he was wearing!" she reminded him firmly. "In fact, all she could tell us was that he had brown eyes!"

"Wild brown eyes," PJ corrected, "and last time I checked, Steven Prior's eyes were pretty wild."

She shook her head. "He's not coming back here, PJ! How many times am I going to have to bloody tell you!"

PJ ignored her question, instead heading out of the office again, calling something over his shoulder about seeing Yvonne Prior. Amy began shaking her head, yet still followed him. Because while logic told her that Steven would never come back to Mt. Thomas, her gut was agreeing with PJ one hundred percent.

------------------------------------------

PJ's eyes widened at the sight of the crucifix hanging from the Prior's front door in the place where normally a Christmas decoration would hang. He glanced back to Amy as the door opened, exposing a rather calm looking Yvonne Prior. Her serenity seemed to falter once she recognised the two officers standing opposite.

"And what would you two be doing here?" Yvonne asked sternly as she switched her gaze between the two. Amy looked away, letting PJ take the lead. His idea, his lead.

"Mrs. Prior," PJ began, "you've heard that Steven has escaped from prison."

She nodded slowly, looking away. "If you're looking for him, you're in the wrong place. My Steven isn't stupid."

PJ nodded, mumbling a sarcastic comment under his breath. Amy rolled her eyes. "Well," PJ sighed as he pulled out his card and held it out towards Yvonne, "if Steven does show up here, then give me a call at the station. Think carefully before you offer him a place to stay, Yvonne, he's a murderer."

Yvonne took the card reluctantly as PJ turned to walk away. Amy forced a weak smile for Yvonne's sake before following him down the front path, calling after him, leaving Yvonne Prior to look down at the card in her hands, doubt shining in her eyes.

------------------------------------------

Kelly sank back in the pillows on her bed at the Imperial Hotel, resting her hands behind her head and closing her eyes. Ever since she had applied for the academy, she had sworn never to let anything get in the way of her desire to be a good copper, especially not a relationship. Of course, she'd never even considered that one day she might fall for a colleague and falling for Joss Peroni was something that could only happen in her worst nightmares.

A soft knock sounded at the door, followed by the generic call. "Kel?"

She sat up quickly, scampering across the room to the door, throwing it open to expose Joss standing in the hallway outside.

"I thought you were having dinner with your mother," Kelly remarked, looking him up and down. He was dressed up, with a clean white shirt and new black pants and shoes. She could have sworn that he was wearing aftershave. A stark contrast to herself, still wearing that day's uniform. "Nice."

Joss smiled weakly as he passed a hand through his hair. "I was until she started going on about some Italian girl she met at the supermarket," he explained, "she'll be trying to set us up now for the next six months, even from Melbourne."

Kelly chuckled at this, inviting him inside, closing the door behind him. She leant back against it. "Then why not just go out with this girl until your mother's gone and then dump her?" she suggested with a cheeky shrug. "That'd be your style, wouldn't it?"

He sat himself on the edge of her bed and shook his head strongly, shrugging sadly. "Not when I can't get over you, Kel."

Her smile faded until her expression was blank. Joss looked away.

_And can you feel the love tonight?_

_It is where we are_

_It's enough for this wide-eyed wanderer_

_That we got this far_

"I can't get you out of my head," he told her, "I…I think I love you."

Kelly couldn't look away, her eyes shining. She approached him, crouching down so that their eyes were level with each other. "Maybe I do too," Kelly said with a shrug as she leant in and kissed him again, pushing him back onto her bed as she grabbed hold of him, refusing to let him go. She pushed her lips harder against his as he reached up to run his fingers through her hair.

Something was going to happen tonight, they could feel it.

------------------------------------------

Amy looked up to see PJ busy chatting on the phone to one of his many Melbourne contacts, probably trying to find some more information about Steven Prior's prison escape. He had decided to work late at the station to see if he could work out where he'd gone and she had decided to join him, much to PJ's surprise. As much as she had argued that Steven would never come back to Mt. Thomas, her gut was still agreeing with PJ, despite the total lack of evidence.

PJ sat the phone back in its cradle, glancing down at his watch and raising his eyebrows in surprise as he realised just how late it was. He leant over his desk to Amy. "You know it's nearly Christmas day?"

Amy glanced down at her own watch, her eyes widening as she mirrored PJ's surprise. "It is too," she agreed, looking up at him.

He climbed to his feet, grabbing his jacket off the hook above Amy's. He turned to Amy as he pulled it on over his shoulders. "Since we both skipped dinner, how about I head over to the pub and get Chris to cook us up something?"

She nodded in agreement, jumping to her feet. "I'll go get it if you want," she offered, only to be met by PJ's shaking head.

"There's a serial killer on the loose," PJ reminded her, but didn't pause to give her long enough to reply, "and anyway, I don't think you'll get me what I like."

Amy sat back down again, giving a bitter laugh. "Men," she said with a smile, "all you lot think about is your stomachs."

PJ nodded cheekily. "Yeah, that's right," he teased with a smile. "I'll be back, alright?"

She nodded in reply as she watched PJ disappeared out of their office and out of the back entrance before lowering her head again. Deep inside her gut, she could feel a strong sense of dread coming on.

------------------------------------------

PJ looked around the near empty public bar of the Imperial Hotel, spotting Chris wiping over the bar top with pride. She smiled as she saw him standing in the doorway.

"Good evening, Chrissie," he greeted as he approached, leaning against the bar.

She turned to him with a mock glare. "You smudge my bar and you can count on no free drinks for a year."

"Aw, Chrissie!" PJ groaned as he climbed up, folding his arms across his chest. "Any chance of me and Amy grabbing a feed?"

Chris tossed the cloth onto the bar and nodded. "Mark said you two were working late," she explained as she turned to head back into the kitchen, "you trying to catch that Prior bloke before he hurts someone else?"

PJ nodded, earning a smile from Chris.

"In which case," she continued, "it's on the house."

------------------------------------------

Amy returned to the CI office from the bathroom, sitting back in her chair, spinning herself backwards and forwards with her right leg. She still couldn't dismiss that dread building inside of her. She didn't get it very often, but when she did, it was bad news.

She could hear footsteps in the muster room. At first, she ignored them, figuring that it had to be PJ back from the pub, but then suddenly a cold rush ran through her body. PJ's footsteps weren't that heavy, like boots, and he would have used the back entrance anyway. Her head snapped up as she jumped to her feet, meeting the gaze of the man standing in the muster room, his arms hanging at his sides. Steven Prior.

After several seconds of terrified silence, Amy ran for it, making a dash for the door out of the CI office and towards the back entrance, but the man in the muster room was too quick for her. Steven grabbed her around the waist as she struggled against his grasp, dragging her out towards the muster room and reception area.

Amy tried to kick herself free, too terrified to scream, no matter how much she wanted to. She couldn't count on PJ's return. She had to fight Steven. She had nothing to lose.

She grabbed hold of the door frame leading into the CI office, causing Steven to momentarily lose his hold on her. In all of this, he hadn't once said a word to her, her heavy gasps of terror and sounds of struggle the only noises in the station.

Before she'd even had a proper chance to pull herself upright and run, Steven had grabbed hold of her wrists, struggling to restrain her in his arms. She thrashed against his grip, her hair flying everywhere as she struggled to get free and retain footing. Suddenly, she could feel her feet slip and herself fall backwards, Steven's hold on her disappearing. She could feel the glass in the window back into the CI office smashing at her back as she fell, her heart skipping several beats in her chest.

Steven let her go as she fell backwards through the window, landing on her back in the CI office as she did so. She groaned as she finally hit the ground, large shards of glass pushing hard into the back of her head, her once new suit now torn and bloodied. Blood began to trickle from a large gash on her left cheek as pain ran through her body.

But he was still as determined as ever. Before Amy had had a chance to even try to work out what the hell had happened, Steven was on top of her again, restraining her right arm with his left as he retrieved a knife from his belt. She reminded herself numbly that she had to fight. She began to thrash around underneath him as best she could, hoping maybe to take him off guard and get herself free. It wasn't working. He rose his knife to her neck, mumbling something to himself as he brought it hard across the side of it, forcing the breath and fight from Amy.

She could taste her own blood as the cold metal slit across her throat, causing her to roll into a ball defensively. She rose her hands to her neck numbly, her strength disappearing as she tried to grab at her wound weakly. The blood was filling her throat and pouring down her suit, staining her once white shirt bright red.

She was beginning to feel light headed and her vision was starting to blur. Her body was searing with pain, the sound of footsteps coming from the back entrance barely audible. She could suddenly hear PJ's voice from the charge counter, saying something about Chris not having any Chinese left.

She rolled onto her back slightly, seeing Steven still standing over her, bloodied knife still firmly grasped in his hands. Returning it to his belt, he took off, struggling with the door out to the reception area as PJ returned to the CI office, swearing loudly as he dropped the blue plastic takeaway bag to the floor, racing to her side, grabbing her large purple coat as he did so. He pulled her into his arms so her head was resting on his knees, the wound at the back of her head slowly soaking his pants. He held the coat to her neck, pressing as hard against her wound as he was brave enough to do without cutting off her airway. He could see him, Steven Prior, looking back as he struggled with the door in the muster room, their eyes connecting momentarily, PJ's shining with disbelief.

"Steven!" PJ shouted just as Steven managed to get the door open and disappear out into the foyer and into the night. "Steven!"

In PJ's arms, Amy closed her eyes momentarily. She felt faint, her head spinning. She needed to rest…

"Amy?" PJ asked as he tightened his grip on her wound, shaking her slightly. "Come on, Amy, don't close your eyes, stay with me, Amy, stay with me!"

She reopened her eyes as PJ fumbled blindly behind him on top of their desks, desperately seeking out a mobile or the phone. He couldn't find one. Everything was black, Amy couldn't see a thing. PJ's worried voice was slowly fading away. She'd had no idea that dying could be so painful.

"Amy!" PJ pleaded desperately, tears sliding down his cheeks as he continued his desperate search for a mobile, his bloodied fingers finally closing around one sitting on his desk. "Stay with me, Amy! Please! You promised you weren't going anywhere! Amy! Come on!"

"Peej…" Amy managed to gasp as she could feel herself slowly fade out. "I…"

"Shush," PJ comforted as his fingers fumbled on the phone's keypad, struggling to call for help, "don't talk, just hang on, Amy! Please, just hang on!"

Listening to what was left of PJ's voice; Amy slowly closed her eyes, praying that she would get to open them again.

_Sleep in heavenly peace_

_Sleep in heavenly peace_


	19. Ep 4: Silent Night Pt3

**Part 3**

PJ paced the hospital corridor, wondering what on earth was taking them so long to tell him anything. This couldn't be happening; this just couldn't be bloody happening. Not to Amy, not on Christmas Eve.

He flopped back into one of the horrible plastic chairs, looking at his hands. Amy's blood had long since dried over them and down the front of his shirt and pants. He sat there for several minutes, not moving or making a sound. He could hear the doctors and nurses talking about Amy, saying things that he couldn't understand. They were keeping their sentences short and filled with medical jargon that he had no hope of ever being able to comprehend.

One of the nurses approached him, grabbing his shoulder gently. PJ's head snapped up, causing the young woman, probably no older than her mid-twenties, to jump back in fright. "Mr., ah…" she trailed off as she drew closer again now that PJ had calmed down.

"Hasham," he finished for her in a deadpan voice, "Senior Detective Hasham."

The nurse nodded to herself. "Senior Detective Hasham," she corrected as she continued, "there's a sink through here if you'd like to clean up." She waved her hand down the corridor somewhere vaguely. PJ looked down at what was once one of his best blue shirts as he nodded and let the young nurse guide him along the quiet corridor. He'd have thought that a hospital at Christmas would be noisier than this.

"Thanks," PJ managed with a false smile as he headed into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He made his way over to the mirror and braced himself on the sink, disgusted at his reflection in the mirror. He looked horrible, with blood down the front of him and covering his hands. Large black bags hung under his eyes, the likes of which he hadn't seen since the nightmares about Tom had stopped nearly two weeks ago.

He grabbed the small, foul smelling soap sitting on the edge of the sink, turned the cold tap on as far as it would go and started scrubbing at his hands until the dried blood had disappeared and his hands were raw and pink. He still couldn't get rid of the smell of blood, though.

PJ returned to corridor slowly, each footstep slow and heavy. Other people walking along the hospital corridor would see him and have to look twice at the sight of the blood on his shirt, causing it to cling uncomfortably to his skin. There was no sign of the nurse who had urged him to clean up, she'd probably been called away.

As he headed back for the closest thing he could get to a vigil at Amy's bedside, he caught sight of one of the hospital's old payphones. He reached a sore hand into his pocket and felt the jingle of loose change. He approached the phone and slipped some coins into the slot, lifted up the receiver and began to dial a familiar number, only to freeze part way through and let his head come to rest on the wall beside the phone. He'd gotten half-way through the phone number for the rectory and had been about to call Tom. It had been over a month and it still didn't seem to sink in that he was really gone.

He hung up the phone, collected the coins from the refund slot before inserting them again and this time dialled a different number, one that he didn't know so well. Their Acting Senior Sergeant.

------------------------------------------

Penny Jacobs awoke with a start as the phone on the table beside the bed began to ring loudly. She rolled onto her side to look at Mark, who was still sleeping as soundly as ever. That man could snooze through a tornado. She crawled back into bed, pulling the covers over her head, but the phone didn't stop. Finally, after seven rings, she resigned herself to her fate and pulled herself into a sitting position grabbing the phone and combing her hair back from her face.

"Hello?" she asked tiredly, suppressing a yawn.

At the hospital, PJ leant against the wall, pressing the phone to his ear. "Penny," he explained weakly, "it's PJ Hasham, one of Mark's…"

"Yeah, yeah," she snapped bitterly, "I know who you are. What I want to know is why you're calling him at eleven thirty at night on Christmas Eve."

PJ passed his spare hand over his eyes. "I'm sorry," he apologised, "but could you please wake him up. It's an emergency."

Penny rolled her eyes, mumbling something inaudible to PJ and looked over to Mark, who was still sleeping soundly. She reached over and shook his shoulder gently. "Mark?" she asked, receiving nothing for her efforts. She tried again, unsuccessfully. Finally, she went all out, kicking him hard in the leg under the blankets.

He sat up quickly, looking at her in disbelief. "Penny?" he demanded softly. "What the hell was that for?"

She held the phone over to him. "It's PJ Hasham," she told him, "says it's an emergency."

Mark narrowed his eyes in confusion as he took the phone from his wife. "PJ?"

"Mark," PJ said as he shifted his weight against the wall, looking along the corridor to the room where they were treating Amy with longing in his eyes. "Steven Prior got into the station somehow while I was off getting some food from the pub," he explained, tears beginning to fill his eyes as he remembered the sight of Amy lying on the ground, bleeding. "He must have pushed her through a window and cut her throat with a knife." PJ began to wave a hand around uselessly as he stood up straight again. "I thought she was going to die, Mark, right in my arms…"

Mark sat up straighter, his face suddenly blank. PJ trailed off on the other end of the phone line. There was only one person who had this kind of emotional pull on PJ. It looked like their worst fears had been realised. Steven Prior had gotten his hands on Amy.

"Now, PJ," Mark soothed weakly, "just calm down. Has anyone told you how she's doing?"

PJ shook his head. "No," he replied, "no one's telling me a bloody thing. Not a damn thing."

Mark let his head sink forward into his hand, ignoring the puzzled look on Penny's face. "Mate," he said gently, "I'll be at the hospital in about ten minutes, okay? I'll give Alex a ring; get him to let the others know. Just…try to keep it together."

As PJ said a weak goodbye from the hospital, Mark handed the phone back to Penny to hang up. She watched him in confusion as he climbed out of bed and began to pull on his uniform.

"So?" she asked. "What's such a big emergency that it can't wait until morning?"

Mark looked over to Penny as he pulled his shirt on over his shoulders. "Steven Prior, that serial killer who escaped from prison this morning, you remember him?" Penny nodded in response. "Well, he just broke into the station and attacked Amy Fox. I've got to give Alex a ring and get over to the hospital."

Penny rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Can't someone else go over to the hospital? Why you?"

Mark stared at her pointedly. "I'm the Acting Senior Sergeant now," he pointed out firmly, "it's my job to take control of these sorts of situations." Penny lay back down under the covers, turning away from him. He sat down on the bed beside her, reaching over to rub her shoulder. She jerked away from him. "I'll make this up to you, Penny," he told her, "I promise."

"Just go and do your job," Penny mumbled coldly as she pulled the blankets tighter over her, closing the subject.

------------------------------------------

The sound of the phone ringing in the hall awoke Alex slowly. He rolled over, kicking the blankets out from the end of the bed as he did so.

"Go to hell," he mumbled tiredly under his breath, but the phone kept ringing. He grabbed his pillow from underneath his bed and pressed it down firmly over his ears. "Go to hell, go to hell, go to hell."

From her room further down the hall, he could hear Susie give a half-asleep grumble of "I'll get it" before the ringing finally stopped. Alex removed the pillow from his ears and replaced it back under his head. However hard he tried, he couldn't tune out to Susie's voice as she spoke on the phone. He could tell that whatever the caller wanted, it wasn't good news.

The door to his room opened and Susie invited herself inside, ripping the blankets off him. He curled up into a ball out of instinct and rose a hand to his eyes as Susie turned them on.

"Suse," he groaned, "it's the middle of the bloody night! I'm half-asleep!"

She threw his wardrobe door open and grabbed one of his uniforms hanging on a coat hanger, tossing it onto the end of the bed. She rolled her eyes at the sight of Alex still refusing to wake up. "Just get up, Kirby," she told him as she grabbed his arm and pulled him up out of bed.

"Geez, Suse," Alex complained as he sat up, "what the hell's going on?"

She looked at him pointedly, before realising that there was no way he could possibly know and let her expression soften. "Lex," she said as she shook her head sadly, "Steven Prior got into the station not long ago while PJ was getting some food from the pub."

Alex just shrugged. "And?"

"And he attacked Amy," Susie continued, "she was pushed through a window in the station and had her throat cut with a knife. She's at the hospital now."

Alex cursed under his breath. "Bloody hell," he mumbled, before looking back up to Susie. "But she'll be alright, won't she?"

She really wished that there was something else she could do, but eventually just shrugged and headed for the door. "Mark said PJ doesn't know," she answered sadly, "I just don't know, Alex."

Alex hung his head. "God, why do I have to be the Sergeant right now?"

Susie looked at him pointedly. "Someone once told me that a real leader always faces the music, even when he doesn't like the tune."

He looked up to her in surprise, his eyes shining in thought. "Where did you hear that?" he asked, only to immediately realise the answer when she looked away, tears in her eyes. It was obvious. That was Lochie's little pearl of wisdom. "Where is Lochie?"

"He got bail," Susie explained quietly, "he's staying with our older brother, Danny. Mum and Dad wouldn't take him; they said that he had brought shame to us. But Danny took him in; he always believed in us the most. They're both in Melbourne."

"And Dianna?"

Susie shrugged again and spoke one last time before disappearing out the doorway. "She's staying up in Mildura with her parents. They're marriage is pretty much over, anyway."

------------------------------------------

Kelly pressed her lips against Joss' again as she adjusted herself on top of him under the covers. She tossed her hair to one side as she moved in again to kiss as suddenly a loud knock sounded at her door. She froze, a chill running up her spine. She looked at Joss worriedly, neither of them really brave enough to breathe, let alone move. They didn't really like thinking about what could happen should the door be opened and them found in such a compromising situation.

"Kelly?" Chris called through the closed door. "Are you awake?"

Kelly looked to Joss for an answer, only to receive a nervous shrug. "Ah, yeah, I'm awake!" Kelly replied, switching her gaze between Joss and the door. "What's going on?"

"I've got Alex on the phone," Chris called back, "apparently he needs you guys at the station immediately. Amy's been attacked."

Kelly turned to Joss, to see him mouthing Amy's name in horror. She felt her face grow blank. "What happened?"

"Steven Prior attacked her at the station with a knife. She's at the hospital now." Chris explained.

Kelly nodded, tossing hair from her eyes. "I'll be at the station in five minutes," Kelly answered. Then, decided to add as an afterthought, "I'll let Joss know if he wants."

There was a short silence as Chris relayed Kelly's offer to Alex, before finally Chris spoke again. "He'd really like that," Chris called through the door, "he'll meet the two of you at the station. Let me know how Amy is, okay?"

"Yep!" Kelly replied, finally able to breathe easy as she heard Chris' footsteps disappearing down the hallway. She looked back at Joss and rolled off him so she lay beside him in the bed. "Shit," she whispered under her breath as she turned to face him. "How the hell has this happened?"

Joss shrugged, closing his eyes as he began to breathe heavily. Kelly finally sat up, hitting him in the arm.

"Well," she declared glumly, "time to get up, Peroni."

------------------------------------------

Mark called rushed apologies over his shoulder as he raced down the hospital corridor until he caught sight of PJ Hasham sitting in a plastic chair, his head in his hands. He stood beside the detective, struggling to find anything to say. Finally, he settled for the only somewhat logical thing his mind came up with. "How is she?"

PJ looked up to him, shrugging and shaking his head as he did so. His eyes, normally such a wise and understanding blue were now filled with the utmost despair and devastation. "No one has spoken to me yet," he replied in a croaky voice, "I can't understand what they're saying in there." He turned to Mark with pleading eyes. "I just want her to be okay."

Mark nodded and placed a hand on PJ's shoulder, gently giving it a squeeze. He looked at the curtains pulled across the corridor in front of them, blocking Amy from view. "She's a fighter," he pointed out in what he hoped was a confident and certain voice, "she'll get through this, you'll see."

PJ rose his hands, looking at them as tears filled his eyes. "I thought she was going to die, Mark," he managed to whisper, "she was in my arms, she was barely breathing…I thought I was going to lose her. She could barely keep her eyes open...I could still lose her."

Mark sat down beside PJ, looking over to him with sympathetic eyes. "You love her, don't you?"

PJ's eyes widened as he turned to face the man beside him, having to think before he shook his head. "No!" he squeaked, before finally realising just how fake it sounded. He looked away and nodded sadly. "Yeah, I do."

Suddenly the curtains were pulled open and Amy was wheeled out on a bed, her eyes closed and covered in dressings and bandages. PJ and Mark rose to their feet, Mark grabbing PJ's shoulder just in case he was tempted to race over and pull Amy into his arms. A bandage had been wrapped around her head with a dressing secured at the back and the parts of her body that weren't covered by the white hospital gown where dotted with white dressings, taped on, the largest on her neck and cheek. An oxygen tube sat at the base of her nose and ran along behind her ears.

As several nurses wheeled Amy away down the corridor, Sophie approached Mark and PJ, shaking hair from her face as she did so. "It wasn't looking good for a while there, but she's stabilised," she explained, "the head injury isn't serious and the laceration on her cheek isn't very deep. We were able to stop the bleeding in her throat, so she should make a full recovery."

Mark nodded, while PJ continued to stare on distractedly.

"He cut her throat," PJ mumbled disbelievingly. "I thought she was going to die…"

"Amy was very lucky," Sophie explained. "Had the knife penetrated another centimetre then it would have been a completely different story. Normally I wouldn't be allowed to do this, but you can sit with her if you'd like. But just try to let her sleep; she's just put up one hell of a fight for her life."

PJ nodded and forced a weak smile as he followed the nurses and Amy down the corridor. Mark turned to Sophie. "Thankyou," he said with a smile, "you've just saved her life and probably PJ's as well."

Sophie nodded as a smile spread across her face. "You've noticed too, then," she asked. He nodded in response.

"Yes," he answered, "he just told me that he loves her."

------------------------------------------

Kelly and Joss stepped into the muster room, not really knowing what to expect. It certainly wasn't the sight that met them.

Glass shards lay around the area of the window between the muster room and the CI office, Amy's dried blood forming a large puddle around it. A mobile lay abandoned beside Amy's desk beside Amy's large purple coat that was now stained with dried blood. The whole station reeked.

"Oh my God…" Kelly whispered as she rose a hand to her nose. Joss looked to her worriedly before looking to Alex, who was busying talking on the phone to what sounded like Inspector Falcon-Price and Susie who was using the station's digital camera to take pictures of the bloodied scene in the CI office. She grabbed Joss' arm, causing him to look away from Alex and Susie and back to her. "How could this happen, Joss?"

He shrugged, completely and totally lost for words. Once upon a time, maybe this wouldn't have had an effect, but this was barely a month after Tom Croydon had been gunned down. To have a colleague, especially Amy - the officer who had helped put Tom's killer behind bars and clear the Boss' name even after two and a half years away – attacked with a knife at their own station was too much.

As Alex hung up the phone, he glanced down to his watch, raising an eyebrow in surprise. He stood up, causing all of them, even Susie, to turn and face him.

"It's five past midnight," he declared, causing each of them to look away – Kelly and Joss to their feet and Susie to the camera in her hands – weakly. "Merry Christmas, guys," Alex continued grimly. "Merry bloody Christmas."


	20. Ep 4: Silent Night Pt4

**Part 4**

PJ sat himself down in the seat beside Amy's bed, reaching out and gently taking her right hand in his, intertwining their fingers. The silence was deafening, the steady beating of Amy's heart monitor the only thing at all around them. He couldn't believe he'd let this happen to her. His Amy. His beautiful, strong Amy was now lying in a hospital bed, having just fought for her life because he hadn't thought about what could happen when he left her alone at the station.

She looked so weak lying in that hospital bed, the pale green blankets pulled up to just above her waist and left hand resting on her stomach. She was wearing one of the hospital's generic white gowns, with a hospital band around her right wrist. The bandage around her head covered her hair line and most of her forehead, its only purpose to keep the dressing in place at the back of her head. Between the bandages and the dressings, she looked an image of despair.

His eyes shone as he looked at Amy longingly, silently praying that somehow she could hear him. "I'm sorry," he told her gently, stroking her right hand gently where tubes hadn't been attached. "I shouldn't have left you alone at the station. Not with Steven Prior out there. I should've thought…"

His voice faltered as he let his head sink forward, resting on the back of Amy's hand. He pressed his lips together tightly, knowing that if he did anything else, he was liable to burst into tears at any moment. Finally, he gave up on trying not to cry.

"I was so scared," PJ confessed as tears began to fall down his cheeks. "I haven't been that terrified in years. I thought I was going to lose you. I still remember that night, Amy." He closed his eyes as he remembered her last night in town back in 2005. "I know I said all the wrong things, but the feelings are here." He placed his free hand on his chest. "You mean the world to me. I don't want you to ever go away like that again. Ever."

Amy didn't awake as PJ spoke, but he was sure that he could see the slightest trace of a smile on her lips. She did feel the same way as he did, even if she wouldn't say it.

He kissed her hand gently, holding it close to his cheek. "I want to make you feel safe," he told her softly, letting his lips brush the back of her hand again. He looked at her, but she still didn't wake. Sophie had said to let her sleep, but he knew that he wouldn't feel sure that she was going to be okay until she woke up and could tell him that herself.

------------------------------------------

Mark entered the station, recoiling instantly as the horrible stench of blood hit him. He looked at the other officers, Susie still taking pictures of the scene in the CI office, Alex with his head in his hands and Kelly and Joss sitting at their desks, both staring off vacantly, neither really brave enough to speak.

They all looked up at he entered, and Kelly voiced their main concern. "How is she?"

Mark paused, looking at his feet momentarily. "She must have hit her head on some glass as she fell, but it isn't serious. He cut her throat with a knife, but Sophie said that they were able to stop the bleeding. Aside from that, she has a lot of lacerations from the glass, but the biggest one is on her cheek and it isn't that deep."

"So she'll be fine?" Kelly asked, causing Mark to respond with a shrug.

"We hope, anyway," he replied, heading across to the CI office to join Susie. She handed him the camera as she finished and headed off into the muster room and away down the corridor, probably to the bathroom or the mess room.

Mark looked down at the scene at his feet, immediately feeling a disgusting taste in his mouth that he hadn't felt since he was a young Probationary Constable. He felt like he was going to spew.

"Kelly, Joss," he croaked out to the muster room, "go over to Yvonne Prior's, bring her in. Let's see if she knows anything about her son's escape now."

------------------------------------------

Yvonne Prior looked to Mark pleadingly as Joss shoved her roughly past the charge counter and towards the interview room. "Sergeant!"

"Actually," Mark corrected as he placed his hands on his hips, "that's Acting Senior Sergeant to you." He turned to face Joss. "I think you can go easy on Mrs. Prior now, Constable. I'm sure she still remembers where the interview room is."

Joss nodded, relinquishing his grip and letting Kelly guide Yvonne into the interview. Mark approached him, keeping his gaze fixed on Kelly as she advised Yvonne to sit down in the seat opposite her.

"Did you see any signs of Steven?"

Joss looked up to Mark and shook his head. "No, Sarge…Acting Senior Sergeant," he corrected himself, "but we couldn't exactly do much looking without a search warrant."

Mark nodded. "Well, let's see if Mrs. Prior would like to tell us anything about Steven now."

------------------------------------------

Yvonne drew in a deep breath, her hand closing around the crucifix hanging around her neck. "I told those two detectives this morning that I knew nothing about Steven's escape. I told them that he wouldn't come back here."

Mark rose an eyebrow sceptically. "Well, why don't you just humour us for a while, then."

She rolled her eyes as she looked from Kelly to Joss and finally back to Mark again where he stood in the corner of the room behind the two Constables.

"First thing I heard about Steven's escape was when it was on the news," she explained in an impatient tone, "he hasn't called me or anything. He's not stupid, he won't come back here."

"You know," Kelly interrupted, "the last person who said that is now lying in a hospital bed having been pushed through a window and had her throat slashed with a knife."

Yvonne's sternness softened slightly. "So that'd be why you woke me up in the middle of the night, then."

Mark glanced down to Kelly before looking back to Yvonne. "Yes, that would be why," he replied, "Senior Detective Amy Fox didn't believe Steven would be heading back here right up until he entered police premises uninvited and attacked her."

"Has Senior Detective Amy Fox identified Steven as being the one responsible?" Yvonne asked, causing Mark to shake his head in response.

"No," Mark pointed out, "she's still unconscious in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital after fighting for her life because your son attacked her in the one place she should have felt safe. No, Senior Detective Hasham arrived on the scene shortly afterwards and got a good look at your son trying to escape from the station through the reception area. He could also be linked to an armed robbery that happened yesterday where the shop assistant was cut with a knife."

Yvonne shook her head, disbelief beginning to shine in her eyes. "Steven wouldn't do that," she insisted, "he's a good boy."

"A good boy who's killed innocent people and tried to kill a police member three times now." Mark interrupted. He moved forward, leaning down closer to Yvonne, much to Kelly and Joss' surprise. "So if you know anything at all about Steven's whereabouts, you'd do well to tell us now."

She looked away momentarily, before looking back to Mark with conviction in her eyes. "I don't know where my son is, Acting Senior Sergeant Jacobs," she told him forcefully, "and I'm beginning to wonder why I'd tell you even if I did."

------------------------------------------

Mark brushed past Kelly and Joss as they exited the interview room, his head lowered. They'd run into a brick wall. Unless Yvonne started talking, then they had nowhere to go. As Mark disappeared down the corridor of the station, Joss leant in to whisper to Kelly.

"He's becoming more and more like the Boss everyday," Joss whispered, immediately expecting Kelly to react badly to this, but she didn't. Instead, she nodded in agreement.

"He is." Kelly conceded as she looked at Joss sadly. What to do now about finding Steven had them all stumped.

------------------------------------------

"What do we do now?" Susie asked as she returned to the muster room, perching herself on the corner of Alex's desk. The uniformed officers – with the exception of Joss wearing his white shirt and black pants – all looked at each other with the hope slowly fading from their eyes. Susie had put it best – what did they do now?

"Acting Senior Sergeant Jacobs!"

Mark turned with a start to see Inspector Falcon-Price standing in the doorway to the muster room, his eyes glowering. He clearly looked tired and not impressed at all.

"Your office," Falcon-Price boomed, ignoring the puzzled looks from the other officers, "now!"

------------------------------------------

Falcon-Price rounded on Mark as he stood on side of the desk, pointing a finger out towards the muster room and CI office. "How the hell did the Prior situation become this critical?!"

"Well," Mark began, hoping to remain calm and collected, "it was really none of our concern and we had done all we could in letting Yvonne Prior know that her son had escaped…"

"You say you had everything under control and yet one of your members, a former Melbourne Homicide detective no less, is lying in hospital having nearly died in her own office!" Falcon-Price boomed. "Is this what you call a controlled situation?! Even Tom bloody Croydon couldn't have stuffed this one up this badly!"

Mark drew in a deep breath, trying to regain his composure. "We weren't to know that he would try to attack Amy in her own police station…"

"No," Falcon-Price snapped, "he didn't try to attack her, he did attack her! He came into this station with the intention of killing one of your members and very nearly succeeded. Had Hasham stopped to speak to that publican for just a few more minutes, then this would be a homicide investigation right now and Senior Detective Fox would be lying in the morgue!"

Mark lowered his gaze. He didn't like to admit it, but the inspector had a point. He hadn't handled this very well at all. None of them had.

"I stationed you in this town with the intention that one day you would take over from Tom Croydon and bring this place up to scratch," Falcon-Price reminded him firmly, "yet, so far all you have managed to achieve is letting it slide further into disarray. Since your appointment to Acting Senior Sergeant, you've managed to have a hostage situation involving a member's brother and an attempted murder in your own police station."

"Sir," Mark interrupted, "with all due respect…"

Falcon-Price shook his head and stormed to the door of the office, opening it so everyone in the station could hear his next words. "Pull yourself into line, Jacobs, or you mightn't find yourself here much longer!"

------------------------------------------

Amy slowly stirred awake, her whole body aching and hurting. It took only a few moments for a sharp, stabbing pain to hit her neck and a dull throb at the back of her head to kick in. She tossed her head from side to side on the pale green pillow momentarily as she opened her eyes, her vision swirling and blurred. Slowly, the hospital ceiling came into focus, in all its starch, white glory.

She turned her head slightly, only to wish she hadn't. The pain in her neck only intensified, causing her to let out a small cry of anguish. She tried to raise her left hand to her neck, but it felt like a lead weight. Her whole body felt heavy and painful to move.

She closed her eyes as she lay back into the pillow again, before turning to see what was holding onto her right hand. Her eyes light up as she recognised PJ beside her, his right hand holding her's tightly and his left arm curled up beneath his head as a pillow as he slept in the chair at her bedside.

The door to her room opened slowly as Sophie stepped inside, forcing a weak smile. "Good to see you're awake, Amy," she said as she approached her, her smile becoming genuine as she noticed PJ's fingers intertwined with her's. "How's the pain?"

Amy opened her mouth to speak, only to be silenced by Sophie.

"Actually, probably better if you don't talk," Sophie explained as she grabbed some buzzer from the table beside her and sat it on Amy's stomach. "If it gets too bad, just press this, okay? One of the nurses will come in and help you. I'll be back in a few minutes."

Just as she was about to disappear around the doorframe, Sophie turned to speak to Amy one last time. "Oh, and let PJ sleep. He's been sitting up with you since you were stabilised, poor thing has been worried sick."

Amy nodded weakly, only for the stabbing pain to return to her neck. As soon as Sophie was gone, she gently removed her hand from PJ's and grabbed the buzzer, pressing down on the button with what little strength she had. She could barely remember anything from what had happened at the station, just that Steven had been there and there had been a knife. It looked like PJ and her gut were right; Steven was back in Mt. Thomas and after her. And if he'd been willing to try to kill her at the police station, then he'd be capable of anything.


	21. Ep 4: Silent Night Pt5

**Part 5**

The sound of the buzzer in the reception area caused the officers in the muster room to look up in surprise. Alex looked up at the monitor, forcing a smile. It was Mrs. Peroni. "Looks like this one is for you, Guiseppe."

Kelly began to bite her bottom lip nervously as she watched Joss bury his head in his hands momentarily. Susie shook her head in confusion. "Guiseppe?"

Joss reluctantly dragged himself to his feet and headed out into the foyer, where his mother was standing on the other side of the counter, her hands placed impatiently on her hips.

"And where the hell have you been?" she demanded. "It's well past midnight and yet you still haven't come home!"

He rolled his eyes. "I was called into work," he explained in as calm a voice as he could manage. He didn't plan to tell her about Kelly, the last thing they needed right now was for to be charged with assaulting his own mother. "A detective was nearly killed an hour ago and we need everyone around."

"Where were you until an hour ago?" Mrs. Peroni asked in what Joss knew was her really angry tone. She didn't use it much, but when she did, it was better to just avoid her.

"I was at the pub," Joss answered, "drinking with my mates."

Kelly chose this moment to enter the reception area slowly, letting a weak smile spread across her face. Joss turned back to her, his eyes pleading her to leave, but still she stayed. "Mrs. Peroni?" she asked kindly. Joss hung his head guiltily. This just couldn't be happening.

Mrs. Peroni looked at her in bewilderment before looking to Joss. "It's her, isn't it?" Almost as if to exclude Kelly from the argument, Mrs. Peroni began to yell at Joss in fast Italian, so fast that even Joss had trouble keeping up with it. Kelly couldn't understand a word of it, but she could tell that Joss' mother didn't quite approve.

Joss rolled his eyes. "Mama," he pleaded in English, deciding that even if his mother wouldn't let Kelly understand the argument, he would, "I don't care that she isn't Italian. I love her!"

Mrs. Peroni looked Kelly up and down, shaking her head in disbelief. "You're dating a…a…a blonde Australian slut!"

Joss' annoyance suddenly turned to blind fury. He thrust a finger in the direction of the front doors. "Get out," he told her firmly, only to be ignored. "Get out!" he bellowed, causing his mother to cower slightly before him and Kelly to jump behind him. "You will not come into my workplace in the middle of the bloody night and start calling my girlfriend a slut! Get out!"

Mrs. Peroni gave a huff of disapproval as she turned and disappeared into the night. Joss turned to Kelly. "I'm sorry Kel…"

She stared after Joss' mother in complete bewilderment. It looked like Joss hadn't come from the simple family that she'd thought he had.

------------------------------------------

Chris peered around the doorway into Amy's hospital room, the sound of the door creaking open finally stirring PJ awake. Amy groggily awoke from her short nap, her body still sore all over and her neck killing her. PJ's eyes lit up as he realised that Amy was awake, but he didn't get much of a chance to say anything.

"How are you feeling?" Chris asked as she came inside, holding out a bouquet of multi-coloured flowers to Amy. She reached out for them with her right hand, only for Chris to change her mind. "I'll go find some water," she said with a small smile, "I'll be back."

As Chris disappeared, PJ turned to Amy, his eyes still sparkling. "You're awake."

Amy nodded weakly, grabbing the buzzer at her side again. "I woke up earlier," she croaked, immediately realising just why Sophie had urged her not to speak. It just made an unbearable pain even worse. She let the buzzer go momentarily as she placed her right hand over her knife wound protectively.

PJ suddenly realised that it was hurting Amy to talk and nodded, his smile fading slightly. "I'm not letting him get his hands on you again, Amy," he told her comfortingly, "I'm going to stay here as long as you want me."

She nodded again, daring to speak once more. "I…I want you to stay with me," she managed to croak, her voice still strange and weak, foreign coming from her throat. He smiled at her gently as he pushed a strand of brown fringe back from the bandage around her head.

"Then I'm not going anywhere."

------------------------------------------

Mark waited until Falcon-Price was well and truly gone before entering the muster room. "Susie," he instructed, "I want you to get a search warrant for the Prior house. If Steven's hiding there, then there has to be some sign of him."

She turned to him, incredulousness written into her features. "You want me to wake up the magistrate at twelve thirty in the morning on Christmas Day to get a search warrant?"

"If that's what it takes, yes." Mark said as he rubbed his eyes furiously. "Joss, put on your spare uniform, we'll need all hands on deck for this one. Kelly, Alex, you're with me in the interview room."

------------------------------------------

Yvonne's head snapped up from her hands as Mark, Kelly and Alex entered the room, closing the door behind him. Alex leant back against it while Mark and Kelly sat themselves down at the table.

"I told you, I don't know anything," she mumbled tiredly, "I could make a complaint, you know."

"Go ahead," Mark said, leaning across, "no copper, ESD or otherwise, would ever have us sacked for trying to find who attacked a fellow member."

"Yvonne," Kelly probed, as she leant across and rubbed the woman's hand gently, "we understand that Steven is your son and you want to protect him from us, but Amy is somebody's daughter and they'd be going through hell right now, knowing that she's lying cut up in a hospital bed."

Yvonne shook her head silently, tears beginning to fill her eyes. Kelly glanced over to Mark and back at Alex, their eyes telling her that she was nearing a breakthrough.

"The longer that Steven is out there, the worse it gets for him," Kelly continued gently, "he's already got a long list of charges against his name, including the escape, the attempted murder of a police member and possibly the robbery. If he isn't found soon, then he may never get out."

Yvonne began shaking her head more forcefully. "No," she whispered, "no my Steven's a good boy!"

"Mrs. Prior," Kelly said quietly, "if you really love your son, you'll help us to find him and stop him before he hurts someone else or he goes after Senior Detective Fox again. Because I can guarantee you that if he tries to attack her again and he kills her, then your Steven will never see the light of day again."

The woman sitting opposite finally broke down into desperate sobs. "I didn't know what he was planning!" she wailed. "He showed up on the doorstep, saying that he needed somewhere to stay. Said that they were doing horrible things to him in jail, that he had to get out of there."

Kelly nodded, looking over to Mark and Alex for a reaction. Their eyes were shining with what she knew was pride.

"I told him that he could hide out in the shed, I didn't know what he was planning at all. I didn't want to know what he was doing in there. I just let him be." Yvonne finished, hiding her head in her hands.

"Would you give us permission to search your shed?" Alex asked from where he was leaning against the door, earning a silent nod from Yvonne. "Thanks," he responded as he opened the door and beckoned the others out.

------------------------------------------

"Guys," Susie as Mark, Kelly and Alex returned to the muster room. She held a plastic evidence bag out to them as she approached them. "I found this outside the station in some bushes."

Mark reached out and took the bag in his hands, eyeing off the wooden cross inside with disgust. He finally relinquished it to Susie. "His calling card," he announced to Joss who was signing his gun out at the gun safe. "We need to search the Prior shed now."

------------------------------------------

Mark opened the door to the Prior shed, gun outstretched. He swung it around the small building before glancing back to the officers behind him and shaking his head, holstering his weapon. "There's no sign of Steven."

The others behind him returned their guns to their belts as they followed him into the shed. Mark and Alex began upturning large bags of blood and bone that were at least three years old, while Kelly, Joss and Susie took to pulling the drawers right out and dumping the contents on the floor.

Joss' eyes began to shine as he pulled out a drawer, only to be met with several piles of notes and coins. "I've found something!"

The others joined him at the drawer as he held the drawer out to them. Susie nodded to herself. "That'd be the proceeds from the robbery."

"Keep looking, we need something that'll tell us where Steven is," Mark instructed as he returned to the bags. It wasn't long before Susie found something else.

"Shit," she swore softly as the others approached her from behind and looked over her shoulder. Sitting in the drawer that she had pulled half-way out was what looked to be a box of bullets. She turned back to them, to see them all suddenly very silent.

Steven had a gun and was after Amy. They had to get to the hospital now.

------------------------------------------

Chris returned to Amy's hospital room, sitting the vase of flowers on the table by her bed. She smiled at Amy before looking to the ragged PJ sitting beside her, his hand wrapped tightly around her's and the buzzer.

"Alex rang earlier looking for Kelly," Chris explained, "I found a 24 hour florist. I can't believe we even have one in Mt. Thomas…"

Amy remained silent, glancing over to PJ. He found himself surprised when he realised that he could understand what she was thinking.

"Thanks, Chris," he said with a smile, "they're beautiful."

Chris looked on in confusion, before PJ continued. "She's not meant to talk much. It'll make the pain in her throat worse."

The publican nodded as she sat down on the end of Amy's bed. "Sorry," she said with a nervous smile, "we were all worried sick, Amy," she told her softly, "you're really part of the team, you know that?"

The three didn't notice that the door had been opened until they heard the sound of a gun being pulled from the figure's pocket. Amy's head snapped up quickly and Chris and PJ spun to see Steven Prior standing in the doorway, closing the door behind him with one hand while he kept the gun trained on Amy as he did so.

"You shouldn't fight this, Amy," he told her in a voice that sometimes still haunted her in her worst dreams, "we aren't meant for this world."

PJ reluctantly relinquished his grip on Amy's hand as he slowly eased himself to his feet, holding out a hand to Steven. "Steven, mate, put the gun down…"

Steven shook his head. "Everything in this world is wrong and Amy and I are the only ones who can see what needs to be done."

Amy found herself unable to stop her body from shaking like a leaf. The terror of being back at the station at the mercy of Steven was returning horribly. The feeling as he grabbed her, dragging her, refusing to let her go. Chris noticed her fear and pulled Amy into her arms as best she could, holding Amy's head to her heart protectively. If Tom Croydon had been like the father of the team, then Chris Riley was certainly the mother.

PJ sighed thoughtfully. "Maybe you and Amy can see what needs to be done, but she won't be able to do it if you shoot her to death." His heart pounded away in his chest in fear. He had to save her. No matter what the cost. "Give it up, Steven; you'll never get away with this."

"The whole world is twisted and wrong," Steven pointed out calmly, "and there's nothing that can be done to change it. We aren't meant for this world Amy, we see differently to everyone else. We can't go back and change anything, we can only move forward."

Amy began shaking her head, hoping that she wasn't crying. "Maybe we can't change the whole world," she whispered hoarsely from Chris' arms, "but we can try." She found herself surprised that after all these years, she was saying her old Constable mantra. "If you kill me then we can't change anything."

Steven shook his head. "The world doesn't want to change," he pointed out, "people go on being abused like you and I everyday and it will never change. We can only go forward. We can't change the past."

"But we can build a future," Amy pleaded in her croaking, pained voice. As much as it hurt to talk, she was going to be the one who would save their lives, not PJ or Chris. "Once we learn to accept our pasts and the world around us, we can start to become better people. We can change the world, Steven."

He lowered his gun thoughtfully as PJ looked over to Amy worriedly. She looked like she was in so much pain as Chris loosened her hold on her weak body.

"I tried to change the world," Steven explained, "I tried to stop the abuse cycle."

Amy began to shake her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Yeah," she admitted, "by killing innocent people like us. Your father did the wrong thing in abusing you, but you killed innocent people who were trying to make themselves better people. All you have done is make life worse, not better."

"No matter how you look at it," PJ interrupted, Amy's weakened voice telling him that she was really struggling to say anything, "it all stops here. You've stabbed a prison security guard, cut an innocent girl working at the servo, nearly killed a detective on police premises and are holding two officers and an innocent woman hostage at the local hospital." He began to shake his head as he backed away towards Amy and Chris. "You're not getting out of here alive, Steven. SOG will arrive soon enough and they won't waste anytime trying to talk to you. There's probably officers from Mt. Thomas and St. Davids outside waiting for you. They won't be wanting to talk either."

Chris tightened her hold on Amy again as she spoke out weakly. "You've hurt enough people," she whispered, "please don't hurt anymore."

Steven looked away from Amy to his gun thoughtfully as he rose it to the side of his head, horror filling their eyes as they realised just what they had convinced him to do.

"Steven, no!" Amy called in a voice that was nearly lost in PJ's struggle to tackle Steven to the ground. The gun was fired just as PJ lunged for it, sending Steven's blood flying everywhere and PJ rolling back in pain, rubbing his red hand as he groaned slightly. "PJ!"

The door flew open and Mark and Susie lead the others through, guns drawn, until their gazes fell to Steven's body on the floor, blood pouring from a wound at the side of his head and the gun lying just next to his hand. The uniforms holstered their weapons as Mark crouched down beside the body on the ground while Susie raced over to PJ, grabbing his shoulders as she pulled him gently into a sitting position, the blood on his shirt worrying her slightly, until she realised it was Amy's from the station.

"PJ?" she asked worriedly. "Are you okay?" She caught sight of his right hand and held it up. "What happened?"

"I tried to stop him," PJ mumbled, "he pulled the bloody trigger on himself when I tried to grab the gun…"

Alex mumbled something about getting a doctor as he turned and raced off down the corridor, calling out for help. Kelly and Joss backed away out of the room, no one really knew where they were going, but no one really cared.

Chris' eyes widened as she clutched the shell-shocked Amy closer to her chest, the bond that had been quickly forged when Amy had returned to town a month ago very evident in the way that the publican held her in her arms, like a daughter or a best friend.

"It's okay," she soothed shakily; "he's gone now. He isn't going to touch you ever again."

As Amy let Chris pull her close, PJ looked up from his hand and past Susie to his Amy in Chris' arms, his eyes shining. After all of the crazy things that had happened over the last month, she was okay. Maybe everything was going to work out alright in the end.


	22. Ep 4: Silent Night Pt6

**Part 6**

**_Lyrics in this part from "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter and "Silent Night"._**

Chris spun from the wine bottles she was adjusting on the shelves of the pub as the front door opened and Mark Jacobs stepped inside, approached the bar and slumped over it tiredly. She surveyed him calmly. "How are they doing?"

Mark looked up to face Chris and sat back, propping himself up on his elbows. "Well," he began, "PJ's suffered a gunpowder burn to his left hand, but it isn't serious. It'll hurt for a few days, but nothing more. Amy's sore throat seems to be a little better, but she seemed really shaky. She'll be alright now that PJ's in with her."

Chris nodded as she looked at him with the tiniest of twinkles in her eyes. "Amy and PJ are really close, aren't they?"

"Well, that's one way of putting it," Mark agreed with a nod, before his tone suddenly became far more downtrodden. "None of us are spending Christmas how we want to. Jonesy is in Melbourne, the Boss is dead, Susie's brother has just been arrested and Amy's just had her throat slashed."

He flopped forward again over the bar. "And just to top it all off, now the Christmas party, my wonderful idea to boost team morale, may as well be off for all the celebration that'll be going on. Amy can't come and PJ won't leave her."

She shrugged cheekily as a smile spread across her face. "Well," she suggested, "if Amy can't come to the Christmas party, maybe the Christmas party can come to Amy?"

Mark shrugged in response as he looked up to Chris. "It's been a bad couple of days, Chris," he mumbled weakly, "it's barely seven a.m. on Christmas Day and already I feel like it's midnight."

Chris nodded and turned back to the drinks sitting on the shelf behind her. "Pick your poison, Mark."

He took a good long look at the shelf before shrugging. "Scotch, I guess."

She grabbed the bottle and two glasses, sitting them on the bar as she poured two full glasses. She pushed one over to Mark sitting on the other side of the counter. He smiled weakly as he took it, rising it to his lips.

'_Cause you had a bad day_

_You're taking one down_

------------------------------------------

Joss opened the door to his small apartment, looking around at it, still undecided as to what exactly he had to say to his mother. Eventually, he gave up and fell backwards into the couch, covering his eyes with his hand in a half-hearted attempt to block out the morning light streaming in through his window.

A large shadow fell over him. "Guiseppe?"

He lowered his hand and opened one eye curiously. "Mama."

"What's her name?" Mrs. Peroni asked softly as she pushed Joss' legs off the edge of the couch and sat beside him. He pulled himself up into a sitting position.

"Kelly," he answered quietly, knowing exactly who 'her' was meant to be. "Kelly O'Rourke. You spoke to her on the phone after you sent that package to the station years ago, remember?"

She nodded, sitting back. "How long have you been seeing her?"

Joss looked to her, trying to keep himself strong. He couldn't back down now. "It first started about a month ago," he explained, "but we only got serious a couple of days ago. We've known each other since we both joined the academy. We've always been there for each other when everything else goes wrong."

"And you love her?"

Joss nodded, not even needing to try to keep the conviction in his voice. "Yes," he answered strongly, "I do. I love her very much."

Mrs. Peroni climbed to her feet, straightening her dress as she did so. "Your father and I are going back to Italy in about a month for his work," she told him calmly. "You treat Kelly right, Guiseppe. If I hear you've done anything to hurt her, then I'll be on the first plane over here to smack you right into line, got it?"

He nodded understandingly as he lay back on the couch, resting his feet on the other arm. "Of course I'll treat her right, Mama."

Joss covered his eyes again, hoping to block out the sun so that he could get at least a little bit of sleep. Unlike Mark, Susie and Alex, he hadn't done much sleeping before Amy was attacked.

Suddenly, a warm hand was pushing his feet off the arm of the couch and to the floor. He looked up to his mother pleadingly, who was smiling broadly. "How many times must I tell you, Guiseppe," she warned him, "no feet on the furniture."

------------------------------------------

PJ nursed his hand slightly as he sat beside Amy on her hospital bed. It was bandaged and still stung painfully, not that he'd let anyone know that. It had to be nothing to what Amy was going through. Neither of them spoke, there was really nothing to say. Sometimes silence said more than words.

The door opened slowly and a familiar face peered through the crack. PJ and Amy looked up, their expressions brightening slightly at the sight of Nick Schultz inviting himself into the hospital, wearing a casual black shirt and horribly out of place khaki shorts.

"Nick?" PJ asked as he climbed to his feet, holding his left hand in his right as he looked Nick up and down. "It's Christmas Day, what the hell are you doing here?"

"Oh, you know," Nick said with a cheeky smile, "it was either come down and see how you were going or visit the in-laws and I know what the less painful option is. Pray that whoever you marry doesn't have them." Nick straightened himself up at the confused expressions on Amy and PJ's faces. "Patrick Joseph and Amy Fox, what on earth have you two gotten up to? You both look like you've been through hell and high water."

PJ gave a bitter laugh. "Pretty good guess, mate."

Nick turned to Amy. "Now Amy, dear, I don't want to tear Patrick away from you, but I think we need to have a chat."

Amy smiled weakly and nodded. Nick rose an eyebrow as PJ guided him out of the room. "She's not meant to talk much," PJ explained as he closed the door behind him. He looked up to Nick. "What's this about?"

"Are you and Amy having a hot affair or something?" Nick asked with a small laugh as confusion passed through PJ's face.

"No," he answered with a bemused shake of his head, "what the hell…"

Nick smiled as he motioned back into Amy's hospital room. "Mate, it's the only explanation I can come up with for the way you look at her. I noticed it the moment she first walked into that station in 2004 and it's only gotten stronger since."

PJ looked away momentarily. How come everyone noticed whatever it was between him and Amy when they didn't even know for sure what it was?

"We're not having a hot affair or an affair of any sort," he told Nick, "she's my best friend and that's all…"

"Yeah?" Nick asked with a laugh. "And there goes a flying pig. Look, mate, the last time I saw such a lovesick face on a copper, it was my own last night looking at Zoe. I mean, you're not being held back by Maggie or Jo are you…"

PJ shook his head furiously. "No, they're actually at the back of my mind right now," he pointed out, "I like her, okay Nick? I really like her and I have for years. Maggie and Jo aren't the problem here, but there's still a lot of other stuff going on here that you just don't understand."

"Maybe I don't," Nick interrupted, "but I do understand this much – you love her and she obviously loves you so cut the time-wasting crap and let her know."

"I can't," PJ argued softly, glancing back to Amy, who was snuggling back into the pillows of her bed. "I don't know if she wants this…She's scared of love. And don't ask me to explain it, it's a long story."

Nick nodded and shrugged expectantly. "So?" he queried, "who says you have to say anything about love? I know what you're like, you'll come up with some way to let her know how you feel."

"I tried to let her know how I feel," PJ said quietly, "two and a half years ago, the night before she left. She was so terrified she hit me and took off and I didn't see her again until she showed up at the station to investigate Tom's death."

Nick closed the gap between them, grabbing PJ's shoulders and lowering himself so their eyes were level. "PJ," he said in the serious tone that Nick saved for only the most deserving times, "it has been two and a half years. That can be a long time. In less than a day, both of you have been nearly killed. There's nothing like life-threatening danger to bond two people, you of all people should know that."

PJ nodded to himself as Nick continued. "Make a move, PJ," he urged him gently, "you never know; maybe this could be the beginning of a new relationship."

The sound of voices heading down the corridor towards them caused them to look up in surprise only to see Mark and Chris leading the uniforms towards Amy's room, each one with presents in their arms.

PJ began shaking his head in disbelief. "What on earth…"

"I think we need to have this Christmas party," Chris explained as the other's entered Amy's room, "now more than ever. Now go home and grab your's and Amy's presents..." She did a double take when she caught sight of Nick towering beside PJ. "What are you doing here?"

Nick chuckled to himself. "Avoiding the in-laws, Christine, what else?" he laughed. "Anyway, had to come down and see how these two were holding up. Leave them alone for too long and all hell breaks loose. Anyway, a Christmas party? I think I might stick around…"

------------------------------------------

PJ returned to Amy's hospital room to find that the others had made themselves quite at home. The tinsel that had once decorated the station had been brought over by Kelly, who has setting about trying to brighten up the bland white walls. All of the presents brought by the uniforms and Chris sat in a huge pile on a small table in one corner of the room, no doubt brought in by Sophie once she'd realised what was going on. The flowers on Amy's bedside table were now surrounded by a few bottles of soft drink and some other assorted varieties of junk food.

He set his presents down as part of the pile, slipping a couple out of view behind a chair and looked around. Nick came over to him, clapping his shoulder brightly. "You certainly miss that good old country policing in Homicide," he pointed out, turning to Amy, "isn't that right, Amy?"

She nodded slowly, obviously still not speaking much. The room seemed so much brighter now that the sun had risen than it had during the early hours of the morning. After Steven Prior had killed himself, Amy had been moved to another room. This one was a little more pleasant than the last, but not by much.

"Anyway," Nick continued, smiling at PJ, "the guys wanted to bring some of the harder stuff, but Sophie wouldn't let it through the door, so you'll have to settle for Coke and Solo. I think you'll be swapping presents soon."

PJ nodded, mumbled a soft thanks to Nick just as he was called away by Kelly to attach some tinsel above the doorway. He turned and sat beside Amy on the bed, just as Nick made some joke about his height.

"You holding up okay?" PJ asked gently, earning a nod from Amy.

"My throat still hurts," she whispered weakly in reply. PJ rubbed her left arm gently with his right hand, nursing his left in his lap. "Not as much as it did before, though."

He found a smile spreading across his lips. For some reason, everything seemed to feel alright now. As bad as last night had been, they had both come out the other side. A lot worse for wear, but they were both alive and doing relatively well and were now celebrating with friends.

"How's your hand?" Amy croaked. PJ looked down at his bandaged hand, his smile fading slightly.

"It's alright," he lied weakly. It wasn't alright, the gunpowder burn hurt like hell.

She reached out to him with her right hand, taking his left gently. He winced, giving a small moan of pain. "It's not alright," she told him softly, "you're in pain. Tell Sophie, let her give you something."

He shook his head, pulling his hand away. "It's nothing, Amy."

"Peej," she insisted, "don't make me argue. Just tell Sophie."

He nodded, standing up and patting her shoulder. "You worry about me too much, Amy."

Chris turned from where she was sorting out presents as PJ left the room, waiting until he was gone to approach Amy. She leant down beside Amy. "I heard what Steven Prior said…"

Amy closed her eyes momentarily, biting her top lip nervously. "If you're trying to ask if I was abused as a child, then the answer is yes."

"Amy…" Chris whispered in shocked awe. "I'm so sorry…"

"Don't apologise," Amy told her firmly, "PJ and Susie are the only ones who know, I'd appreciate it if this was to stay between us."

Chris nodded, her eyes wide in sympathy. "Yeah, of course. It won't go any further."

------------------------------------------

Kelly handed her present to Mark, smiling guiltily. He took it, shaking it tentatively while the others looked on, holding back laughter as they sat around Amy's bed, surrounded by wrapping paper.

"I hope this isn't another pair of socks," he lamented as he tore the wrapping paper off Kelly's present, only to expose a pair of plain black socks. "Brilliant," Mark mumbled, trying to suppress laughter, "did you lot plan this or something?"

"Nah," Alex said with a laugh, "but you gotta be careful what you buy your boss."

Amy reached down into her pile, picking up her last present. She held it out to PJ who was sitting beside her on the bed, smiling as she did so.

PJ struggled with the wrapping paper for several minutes before he finally managed to tear it away, his eyes lighting up at the silver watch inside. "Amy," he gasped, turning it over in his right hand, "it's wonderful…you didn't have to…"

She shrugged with a weak chuckle. "I did."

He looked down at his left hand and smiled. "I'll put it on once my hand's better." He met her gaze, the electricity now nearly unbearable. Nick was right, they were about to reach another turning point. "Thankyou."

------------------------------------------

Nick pulled a red Santa hat down over Amy's ears and nearly her eyes as well as he chuckled to himself. "Well," he declared, "if I don't get home sometime today, Zoe will have my head on a platter. I'll call you guys later."

The Mt. Thomas officers called their goodbyes to Nick as he disappeared down the hospital corridor from where they were finishing the final clean-up. PJ sat at Amy's bedside still, the presents he had hidden behind the chair now sitting just beside him, out of Amy's view.

"I suppose I should be getting home, see if I can make it up to Penny for last night," Mark said with a nervous smile. "How about you guys?"

Alex nodded as he lifted himself out of his chair, looking to Susie. "Yeah, I think I'll head home for a good, long nap. Suse?"

Susie nodded in agreement. "I think I'll do that too."

Amy lifted the hat on her head slightly to make it more comfortable as she nodded.

Joss yawned loudly. "I might head home, my mum's probably made lunch." He turned to Kelly. "You want to join me, Kel?"

She nodded, grabbing her bag of presents as she followed Joss out, followed closely by Susie, Alex and Chris. Mark went to leave, before changing his mind. He approached Amy and PJ, clapping PJ on the shoulder encouragingly before kissing Amy's forehead softly, just beneath the bandage and Santa hat.

"Merry Christmas, you two," he said with a smile as he disappeared, leaving Amy and PJ alone in the quiet hospital room.

Amy looked to PJ with a smile on her face. "Mark's growing into this job, you know?"

"Yeah," he nodded in agreement as he looked to her. "I did get you a couple of presents, you know. I just didn't want to give them to you with everyone else around."

Her eyes lit up as PJ retrieved the largest present from beside him and handed it to her. She tore the wrapping paper away to reveal a large mustard-coloured coat, similar to her old purple one. "PJ…"

"I bought it when I left to pick up the presents," he explained gently, "I kinda ruined your purple coat when I used it to stop the bleeding…"

Amy's smile faded slightly as she passed a hand across the coat's soft material. "It's beautiful," she told him softly, "thankyou."

"And that's not all!" PJ declared, pulling a much smaller present from beside him. It was a small, flat, square box. Amy began to shake her head. "This was what I was going to give you originally…"

She once again tore the paper away, exposing a jewellery box. Amy shook her head slowly as PJ opened it for her gently, ignoring the pain in his hand as he head up the open box, showing the beautiful necklace in it to her. It was a simple silver chain with a small green stone hanging from it.

Amy pressed her fingers to her lips. "PJ, I can't accept this…"

"Yes, you can," he told her as he gently hung it around her neck, fastening it at the back. "I saw the stone and I couldn't help but think of your eyes…"

She smiled to him broadly as he sat back, brushing the blanket with his right hand. PJ looked to her, his eyes shining. "Amy, I…"

Her smile didn't vanish as she shook her head slightly, silencing him instantly. "PJ, I need to say something and I need you to shut up and let me say it," she told him, "you know, if you hadn't said that one word, I never would have left." PJ didn't need to ask what she was talking about, he already knew. "I'd gotten the job offer from Homicide earlier that day and I'd turned it down, but after that night, I rang them back and accepted it."

PJ nodded, meeting her eyes bravely. She shrugged to him with tears in her eyes. Yet she was still smiling. "All I've ever wanted is to feel safe and wanted," she continued in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. Her sore throat was kicking in again. "You make me feel good in a way that I never have before. I feel comfortable with you, like I can just be myself."

He reached over, brushing the back of his right hand against her uninjured cheek. "I still feel the same way, Amy," he whispered in response, "I shouldn't have said what I did…it was stupid…"

Amy didn't give him a chance to say anything more because she leant over to him, pressing her lips softly onto his, lifting his chin up gently with her left hand. She pulled away seconds later, meeting his eyes weakly. Blue eyes sparkled brightly as he moved into kiss her again, placing his good hand on her arm, rubbing her soft skin gently. They continued to kiss in Amy's room in the silent hospital, the electricity that had taunted them for so long finally spilling over.

Both of them could feel it, this would be the first day of the rest of their lives.

_Silent night, Holy night_

_All is calm, all is bright_


	23. Ep 5: Tabula Rasa Pt1

**Episode 5: "Tabula Rasa"**

**Summary: **_Amy returns home from hospital only to be excluded from PJ's investigation into a drug shipment and instead plays detective for Chris about a mysterious guest at the pub. As New Years approaches, the Heelers are prompted to look to the future._

**Part 1**

PJ switched the light on in the entrance hall of the house he shared with Amy, kicking empty pizza boxes out of the way with the side of his foot as he led her inside. She followed him slowly, her black overnight bag pulled over her right shoulder. She was wearing a plain white shirt and black pants – the most casual outfit she owned with the exception of her pyjamas. Her grip on the bag's black strap tightened slightly as PJ turned to face her, his eyes sparkling. It was nearly New Years Eve and it felt good to be home.

"Well," PJ said with a smile creeping across his face, "home sweet home."

She nodded thoughtfully as PJ leapt forward, tearing her bag from her grip. He motioned towards her room, bowing slightly as he did so. "After you," he joked, earning the slightest of chuckles from Amy as he did so. She shot him a small smile as she headed down the hallway, opening the door to her room.

PJ came up behind her, his eyebrows raised slightly as he surveyed Amy's less than decorated bedroom. In fact, aside from the couple of pictures sitting on the table beside her bed, there was nothing there at all.

Amy entered the room, sitting down on the edge of her bed, watching as PJ dumped her bag on the floor and joined her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as he pulled her tight to his side. They both found their gazes falling to the photographs – the one of the old team at Ben's farewell over three years ago and one that was most likely from Amy's graduation from the academy. PJ reached out, taking it in his hands and holding it close as he looked at a much younger Amy. She couldn't have been more than nineteen, twenty at the most, but she didn't look that different. Her hair was a little longer and swept off her face in a stern ponytail and she was wearing her formal police uniform, complete with skirt.

"Wow," PJ mumbled to himself in observation, "I could never imagine you in a uniform before now."

Amy looked down at the photo, nodding thoughtfully. "I remember that day," she told him, her voice still croaking slightly as she spoke, "everyone kept telling me that I was going to make a great copper."

He smiled, sitting the photo back where it used to be and picked up the picture from Ben's farewell, his eyes brightening in remembrance. "We never really had many get-togethers when you were here," he reflected in a sad and regretful voice, "we should have."

She nodded, taking the photo from his grasp gently. "Everyone else was too busy coping with the bombing," she pointed out softly, "we just never got around to it."

PJ nodded, glancing down to the watch Amy had given him on his wrist, his eyes widening. "If I don't get going soon, then I'm going to be very, very late." Amy looked up at him expectantly as he stood up and headed for the door.

"Aren't I coming?" she asked him, her eyes narrowing slightly in confusion. PJ sighed, turning back to face her with protectiveness in his eyes.

"You've just gotten out of hospital," he reminded her gently, "you shouldn't be working. Anyway, Mark won't let you through the door!"

"PJ!" Amy moaned, letting her head hang back in frustration, despite the slight stab of pain that ran along her neck. The protectiveness in his eyes softened as he knelt in front of her, pressing his lips hard against her's in farewell. He pulled away reluctantly, their eyes meeting.

"I don't want you to get hurt again," he explained softly, "I care about you too much."

With that as their farewell, PJ rubbed her shoulders gently and left her sitting alone in her near bare bedroom, looking around herself as if something to keep her occupied would suddenly appear.

---------------------------------------------------

Alex leant over his desk, mumbling incoherently to himself. Mark passed him, collecting the mail from his pigeon hole, only to stop and stare at Alex in confusion. He edged over to Kelly slightly, lowering himself to her height.

"What is he…ah…doing?"

Kelly glanced up in surprise at Mark's words, smiling slightly. "His Sergeants exam study papers arrived this morning," she explained, "he doesn't seem to be too confident."

Mark rolled up his own study papers that he had just collected and approached Alex, lowering his head to read over his shoulder. "Should you be studying on duty?"

Alex spun to face him in surprise, letting out a gasp of surprise. "How else am I going to memorise all these useless, useless things?!"

Mark stood back, folding his arms across his chest as Susie emerged from the mess room, stirring a cup of coffee. "You shouldn't have any trouble with this, I'd have thought," he told Alex, "it's just the same things that you've been doing for the last month now, that's all it was when I did the test."

Alex held up the booklet, waving it around wildly. "And when did you do the test?" he demanded in frustration. "According to this, we should be conducting major drug raids everyday and nabbing serial killers on the way home!"

"Only in CI, mate," PJ chimed as he entered the station, biting down hard on a McDonald's hash brown as he did so. Alex turned to glare at him, while Mark snatched the booklet from Alex, skimming through it as his eyebrows slowly rose.

"Well," Mark mumbled, suddenly downtrodden, as he handed the booklet back to Alex, "if that's your exam, then I don't think I want to see mine."

As Mark and PJ disappeared back into their respective offices and Kelly resumed her paperwork, Alex looked up to Susie pleadingly. He pulled out the big guns – the puppy dog eyes that he knew would melt Susie's heart. She rolled her eyes as she sat her coffee down on his desk and grabbed her chair.

"Shove over, Alex," she told him, "I'll give you a hand."

---------------------------------------------------

PJ leant back against the window in the CI office, leafing through one of the many reports that lay scattered and unfinished over his desk. He made a couple of corrections as he tossed it back down again, looking over the mess that had grown quickly over the last few days. Since Amy had been attacked, his paperwork had multiplied to cover both desks, leaving him scarcely enough room for a cup of coffee.

The phone – buried beneath a so far unattempted report about a cold burg two days ago – rang loudly, causing PJ to dive for it, retrieving the receiver from underneath.

"Hello," he said, leaning forward over the back of his chair and onto the desk, "Mt. Thomas CI, Senior Detective Hasham speaking."

PJ's face contorted slowly from his bright, beaming smile to an expression of horror and disbelief. "You're not serious, are you?" he asked the person on the other end of the line. The less than pleased look in PJ's eyes clearly said that his contact wasn't. "Can you give me a date then…no? Names? Anything…Fine, thanks. Yeah, bye."

He returned the receiver to its cradle and sank forward, his weight resting uncomfortably on the back of the chair. He mumbled an inaudible curse under his breath before dragging himself back to his feet and approaching the muster room, resting his hand on the door frame.

"Everyone?" he called, causing the group to look up in surprise. Joss and Kelly looked up from where they were obviously both attempting some sort of paperwork, whereas Susie and Alex actually looked rather pleased to have the interruption. Mark emerged from his office slowly, his eyes reflecting cool curiosity. "A contact of mine in drug squad just rang."

Immediately, the uniforms seemed to sense that whatever PJ had to say wasn't going to be good. Kelly and Joss shared an uneasy glance, shuffling themselves in their chairs uncomfortably, while Alex gently closed his study papers, pushing them aside while Susie followed his hand. Something told her that they wouldn't be doing much study today.

"Apparently it looks like we've got a big marijuana shipment coming in," PJ explained in deadpan tones, "he couldn't tell me when, where or who, but there's one coming."

"Crap," Alex swore loudly from where he sat, earning himself a look of disapproval from Susie beside him. "What do we do?"

PJ paused thoughtfully for a moment before heading out to the car park, grabbing the CI car keys as he went. "I'm going to see a man about some marijuana."

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PJ pulled the car up alongside a dingy Mt. Thomas alleyway, sending the horn blaring with a tap of his right hand. The man leaning against the heavily vandalised wall turned to face him, extinguishing a joint just out of view of PJ. He pulled his hood down hard, turning away slightly and hunching his shoulders away from PJ.

PJ leant across the front seats of the CI car, opening the passenger side door to the man. He turned to face the detective in confusion, letting the joint drop down beside him. "Eric, mate," PJ called with a weak smile, "climb in."

"I ain't done nothing!" Eric protested, glancing along the alleyway, tossing up whether or not he'd be able to disappear before PJ had the chance to chase him.

"Hey, either you can give me some info here or we can do it back at the station," PJ pointed out with a sneaking smile creeping across his features. "And while we're there, we can have a little chat about that joint I just saw you smoking."

Eric finally let out a grunt of defeat as he climbed in beside PJ, pulling the door closed. He looked over to the detective. "Someone could have me killed for talkin' to you."

"Mate," PJ said, his smile becoming somewhat serious, "you tell me what I want to hear and they won't find you."

Eric pulled his hood tighter, turning away from the window on his side of the car. He looked at PJ with as much seriousness as he could muster. "What?"

"Marijuana," PJ replied, pulling a hundred dollar note out of his pocket and holding it between his fingers, waving it in front of Eric's nose. Eric made a desperate grab for it, only for PJ to move it just beyond his reach. "Mate of mine says that there's a big shipment on the way."

Eric shrugged, diving again for the money. PJ once again moved it away from him. "I ain't been told nothing about no marijuana shipment!" he protested, PJ shaking his head in disagreement.

"I can only give you the money if you give me some information," PJ explained as he pulled his old black leather wallet out and dug through until he found a fifty dollar note. He held both notes out to Eric, taunting him with it as if he were playing with a dog. "I can give you one-fifty," he added, "but I want details."

The promise of cold, hard cash in excess of a hundred dollars seemed to be all that was needed for Eric to start talking. "Sometime tomorrow," he told PJ, his eyes fixed firmly on the money in the detective's hand, about ready to start drooling, "some old hut on Widgeree Road. Don't know no names, but they're from the big smoke. Now do I get my cash?"

PJ thought over Eric's information, before finally offering the money to him. The younger man beside him snatched up the notes, climbing out of the car and scampering off down the alleyway while PJ stared out the windscreen thoughtfully. They didn't have much time.


	24. Ep 5: Tabula Rasa Pt2

**Part 2**

Amy headed into the public bar of the Imperial Hotel, adjusting her messy, unbrushed dark hair so that it covered as much of her injuries as possible. As it was, most of the dressings on her neck and cheek were still visible and her arms were dotted with cuts and bandaids.

Chris turned from where she was serving a lunchtime customer, her eyes lighting up at the sight of Amy up and out of hospital. She gave the patron a rushed apology as she dashed around the counter, pulling Amy into an awkward hug. "Finally let you out of the fishbowl, did they?" she asked, earning a mystified expression from Amy. "I thought you'd be at work."

Amy followed Chris over to the bar, pulling up a stool while Chris approached the shelves. "You want something to drink?"

The detective shook her head profusely, laughing slightly. "I'm still on painkillers, I'm not meant to drink."

"Okay," Chris continued, heading over to the fridge and retrieving a bottle of lemonade. She passed it over the bar to Amy, her smile broadening from ear to ear as she leant against it. "It's on the house," she explained as Kelly stepped inside, joining Amy. "The lunches?"

Kelly nodded as Chris turned and headed back into the kitchen. Amy tightened her grip on the bottle of lemonade in her hands, watching as Kelly turned to lean with her back against the bar, her eyes closed in silent thought. She was sure she could see the slightest of smiles on her face.

"So…" Amy probed gently, leaning over to Kelly, "how's life at the station?"

Kelly looked over to Amy, turning so that she was resting her weight against the side of the bar. "PJ got word of a marijuana shipment coming in," she explained, lowering her voice so the lunchtime crowd couldn't hear, "sometime tomorrow, apparently. He just got back from chatting to some informant when I left."

Amy's eyebrows rose and her eyes widened at Kelly's words, her mind running at double speed. "Marijuana?" she hissed back in disbelief. "Do you know where?"

"I left before PJ said," Kelly replied, leaning in closer, "but it sounds like a pretty big job. I've got a feeling that we're going to be putting it under surveillance."

"Really?" Amy queried, opening her mouth to further interrogate Kelly when Chris emerged from the kitchen, brown cardboard box full of white sandwich bags in her arms. The blonde beside her took it grateful, shooting Amy a beaming smile as she turned and disappeared out the door.

Amy slumped down over the bar, folding her arms underneath her chin and looking up at Chris. "You know they've got a drug shipment coming in?"

Chris leant forward opposite Amy, lowering her voice instinctively. Her pub had been the copper's pub for long enough for her know when something was being said in confidence. "Sounds like a rotten time to be unable to work."

"I'm fine to work," Amy pointed out defensively, "PJ won't let me."

"He's just protective," the publican explained, glancing around her just to make sure that no one was listening. "He really likes you, you know…"

Amy chuckled, her face suddenly brightening as she sat back, resting her arms on the bar. "I've sort of worked it out," she replied, "we're sort of…together, if you get what I mean."

Chris' eyes widened as she stood back, a broad smile spreading across her face. "I gather no one else knows?"

"Not unless they're psychic, no," Amy said as her voice lowered even further, "do you mind keeping this to yourself? I don't want everyone in town to know…"

Chris shot her a wink as she turned back to the shelves to retrieve a drink for a very impatient patron in the dining room. "Your secret's safe with me."

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PJ returned to the CI office to see Amy standing in front of the window, arms folded across her chest. While his heart did back flips to see her again, he couldn't help but feel slight agitated. "Amy?" he demanded gently, causing her to spin to face him, not bothering to try to hide her injuries as she had all morning. "I told you to stay at home."

"I was at the pub when Kelly mentioned the marijuana shipment," she explained calmly, "I figured you'd need some help with the surveillance. Help bring up the numbers, you know."

PJ approached her, taking her hands gently. "It's a dangerous job," he pointed out, "you're just out of hospital. You shouldn't have even gone to the pub."

"You know me, PJ," she continued with a shrug, "I can't just sit around all day watching TV. There's only so much _Days Of Our Lives_ and repeats of _The Bill_ that one can take before wanting to stick a foot through the screen."

"Amy," he told her gently, glancing out to the muster room to make sure no one was watching before placing a soft kiss on her right cheek, "I just don't want you to get hurt. These people could be dangerous."

She nodded, reluctantly pulling her hands free of PJ's. She smiled at him weakly in farewell as disappeared out the back entrance of the CI office; probably back over to the pub. At least she'd be safer there.

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Chris returned from the dining room to find Amy once again sitting at the bar, sighing as she sat with her head propped up in one hand, drumming the surface of the bar in annoyance and boredom with the other. The publican laughed to herself slightly as she approached. "Gather PJ didn't change his mind."

"He's worried about me," Amy explained with a soft laugh, "I like that he cares about me, but he doesn't understand that I can look after myself."

"Look at it this way," Chris pointed out, leaning over to Amy and dropping her voice to scarcely louder than a whisper, "he's already lost two fiancés. He's nearly lost you. I know PJ – he's scared senseless of what could happen to you."

Amy looked away thoughtfully, biting the inside of her mouth before heaving a heavy sigh. "Solving crime is all I've been able to do," she said with a half-smile, "I don't know what to do with myself when I can't."

Chris nodded in agreement, slinging a towel over her shoulder as she grabbed a glass from the bar and proceeded to pour a drink for a restless customer several stools away. "My usual barmaid's on holidays at the moment, so you're welcome to help out here if you'd like."

"Chris!" Amy scoffed as the publican served the drink to her patron and deposited the money into the till. "You know that police officers can't work on licensed premises."

"Yeah, but you wouldn't be working, would you?" Chris asked cheekily, a huge smile plastered on her face. "You'd be simply helping out an old friend. You're not getting paid so I hardly see the problem."

Amy rose his eyebrows, suppressing laughter of disbelief. "You've really worked this out haven't you?"

"Of course!" Chris replied with a wink. "Jonesy found that loophole a few years ago."

Silence fell between them at Chris' words, the mere mention of Jonesy's name creating an awkward ambience almost instantaneously. Amy pushed a strand of fringe from her eyes as she fixed Chris with a curious stare. "What happened to Jonesy?"

Chris' once-bubbly and bright mood suddenly darkened as she combed bright red curls back from her forehead. "He's in Melbourne," she explained sullenly, "he moved there last year."

"He didn't front to the funeral," Amy observed quietly, "I thought he would have…he'd known the Boss for longer than most of us."

The publican nodded sadly, folding her arms against the bar. "I sort of hoped he would too," she confessed dismally, "Nick and Zoe made it down."

"Melbourne is only a few hours away," Amy commented thoughtfully, "but sometimes it can be like another world."

"It is, isn't it?" Chris conceded, shifting her weight awkwardly, the weight of the discussion and thoughts of Jonesy making her feel uncomfortable.

Amy sighed in agreement with Chris, her eyes misty. "I'd hoped he'd still be here when I came back," she admittedly softly, "he could be an immature, insensitive and disrespectful cowboy at times, but he did make for a good sidekick every now and again."

"Anyway," Chris declared, pushing herself back and combing her frizzy ringlets back so that they fell behind her shoulders, "come around this side of the bar and I'll give you your first lesson in bartending."

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Kelly rose the binoculars to her eyes, adjusting the distance between the two lenses as she focused beyond the car windscreen and the thin tree cover and at the dilapidated old shed sitting before them. Joss sat beside her, the sound of the potato chips crunching in his mouth seeming magnified by the silence around them.

"This sounded so much more interesting when PJ told us about it," she lamented loudly, the randomness of the comment enough to make Joss jump a little in his seat beside her. Kelly surrendered the binoculars to him, snatching the bag of chips from his hands. "Your turn."

"What?!" Joss protested loudly, making an unsuccessful grab for the bag of chips in Kelly's hands. "No fair! I want my chips back!"

She smiled at him cheekily, lowering the bag slightly so that they were within Joss' grasp. "You're going to have to kiss me first."

Joss sat back, placing the binoculars on the dashboard and folded his arms across his chest stubbornly, like a young child not getting their way. "That's bribery!" he pouted. Kelly fixed him with an expectant stare, which finally seemed to melt whatever resistance Joss had. He reached up, tightening a hand around the chip packet while he kissed Kelly had on the lips. She kissed him back, relinquishing her grip on the chips as she did so. After several seconds, they broke apart, both smiling broadly as they breathed heavily, trying to recapture their breath.

"So," Kelly probed, taking the binoculars from Joss' side of the car and quickly scanning the shed, praying that no one had gotten inside during their brief kiss, "tonight…provided PJ still isn't using us as his personal slaves, do you want to come over to my room or am I going to your place?"

Joss' eyes sparkled at this, his mouth half-full of chips as he replied. "How about my place?" he suggested. "I'm not letting Chris nearly catch us out again."

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Amy adjusted her hair so that it fell over the dressing taped to her neck as she wiped the bar of the Imperial Hotel down half-heartedly, secretly wondering how on earth Chris Riley could do this everyday. All it ever seemed to be was an endless pattern of taking orders and serving drinks. It was serving as a stern reminder of why she'd never gone into retail.

A man entered the public bar, engaged in what appeared to be a very heated mobile phone conversation. The man was of a pretty slim build, nothing like most of her colleagues anyway. He wore a clean and pressed black suit; nothing like Amy had ever thought she'd see very often out in Mt. Thomas. His hair was gelled back off his face neatly and his face seemed devoid of all emotion as he sat down at an isolated table, still talking on the phone.

Amy edged closer to Chris, wringing the towel slightly in her hands. "Who's he?" she asked, nodding in the vague direction of the mysterious suited man. Chris followed her gaze, shrugging in disinterest.

"He checked in last night," Chris explained, "he's not a big talker. Except on that phone of his. He keeps to himself, must be here for business."

The detective nodded in agreement as Chris disappeared from behind her shoulder, off to serve a customer in the dining room, but she couldn't keep her eyes off the man in the suit, still chatting on that mobile phone. She didn't doubt that he was in town for business, but her gut was starting to tell her that it was business of the illegal variety.


	25. Ep 5: Tabula Rasa Pt3

**Part 3**

Amy approached the man sitting at a secluded table of the public bar, praying that her injuries wouldn't tip him off that she was anymore than just a simple bargirl. "Would you like anything?"

The man hastily finished his phone conversation, looking up to Amy with a slightly alarmed glint in his eyes. He shrugged, sitting the phone on the table before him. "Ah, yeah, a bottle of coke would be nice," he mumbled, feigning a smile.

She did her best to return the gesture and headed for the fridge behind the bar, retrieving a bottle from it. Chris narrowed her eyes, looking at Amy in confusion.

"What are you doing?" she asked, shaking her head in puzzlement.

Amy looked to Chris pointedly, twisting her grip on the bottle slightly. "I think he might be involved in the drug shipment PJ's investigating."

Chris chuckled in disbelief at this. "Sounds like something Joss would come up with."

Amy leant in closer, lowering her voice to scarcely louder than a whisper. "How many men in suits do you see in Mt. Thomas?" she demanded, casting constant sideways glances at the man sitting at the table, drumming his fingers on the table in impatience. "My gut's telling me that he could be involved…I just need to look into it, okay?"

"Okay," Chris replied reluctantly, forcing a teasing smile, "but if this guy's not involved, I don't want to be losing any business."

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Alex climbed into the unmarked police car beside Susie, looking over to her with a broad smile on his face. The blonde sitting beside him, eyes fixed on the shed through the binoculars, didn't return the gesture.

"Can't say that this is my idea of a perfect night," he remarked, looking at Susie, his broad smile becoming quite tentative. "You'd wonder why PJ couldn't do this himself."

Susie didn't lower the binoculars, instead choosing not to respond to Alex's attempts to make her open up. He was always doing that, trying to bring out a bubbly and bright Susie Raynor that she was afraid didn't exist anymore. Unintentionally, she'd become someone she'd once vowed she'd never be – the bitter, cold copper who existed only for the job.

Alex rose a startled eyebrow at Susie's silence and sat back in his seat, the cool evening breeze seeping in through the barely-opened window. "This is going to be a _long_ night," he lamented in a voice that was barely more than a mumble, looking away out into the darkness beyond the window on his side of the car. Susie just hadn't been the same since Jonesy left.

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Amy shuffled away from PJ awkwardly as she grabbed another crinkle-cut chip from the open packet lying askew on the coffee table in front of the couch, the TV in front of them barely audible as it cast a warm glow around the room.

"So," PJ asked, as Amy bit down hard on the chip in her mouth, "how was bar duty?"

She shrugged, curling up in the corner of the couch, almost as if she was trying to distance herself from PJ as much as possible. As much as she understood Chris' reasoning for why he didn't want her at work, she still didn't like it.

"Alright, I suppose," she mumbled in response, shrugging again, "I'm looking into some mystery guest Chris has got staying at the pub."

"Mystery guests?" PJ queried, his eyes widening in disbelief. "I can't believe you're lowering yourself to that standard."

Amy climbed to her feet, straightening her old blue pyjamas as she did so. "Well, you won't let me do much else," she told him firmly, "I'm going to bed, night PJ."

PJ looked up at her with shining eyes as she dragged herself off down the hallway towards her bedroom, noticing sadly how she failed to kiss him in farewell as she might normally have. Instead, she gave the arm of the couch a soft pat as she padded off barefoot to her room, closing the door behind her.

He let his head sink forward into his hands, rubbing his tired eyes desperately. It seemed that no matter what he did, he couldn't get it right. He just wanted to show her that he cared and he couldn't even do that properly.

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PJ slipped into the back seat of the unmarked police car, causing Susie and Alex to stir awake in surprise. He narrowed his gaze as he regarded the pair, Susie combing messy hair back from her eyes quickly and Alex yawning loudly, his arms stretched out above his head.

"Not sleeping on the job, are you?" he asked with false disapproval dripping in his tones.

"Of course not," Alex lied with a nervous laugh, shifting himself around in the driver's seat. "So sometime today, huh?"

The detective sitting in the back seat leant forward, nodding in reply as Susie turned herself around next to Alex. "According to my informant, yeah," he answered, rubbing his eyes tiredly, "Kelly and Joss will be out soon to help out and I've got backup coming from St. Davids a little later."

Susie nodded in response to this, but Alex had other things on his mind. His eyes glinted cheekily as he noticed the faint bags under PJ's eyes. "You look a little tired, mate," he pointed out with a cheeky smile, "you and Amy up late last night?"

PJ narrowed his eyes critically at Alex, trying to think up a good answer to this. Long gone were the days when he was actually very adept at hiding relationships from colleagues. He'd long since realised that there was no real point. But he wasn't telling Alex Kirby now, anyway. "Nah, just couldn't get to sleep," PJ explained. It wasn't really a lie. He couldn't get to sleep last night, trying to deal with Amy's anger over his protectiveness of her. "You two can have a break soon anyway," he continued, opening the car door and climbing out, "as soon as Kelly and Joss get here."

As soon as PJ had closed the car door behind him, Alex looked over to Susie, eyebrows raised. "How much do you wanna bet that PJ's hiding something from us about Amy?"

Susie shrugged, almost uncaringly, as she sat back in her seat, rubbing her weary eyes. "None of our business what they get up to, Alex," she told him firmly, causing his upbeat expression to plummet instantly. Deep down she agreed with Alex, she had known PJ too long to not know when he really cared about someone, but she also knew about Amy's past. Not to mention Maggie and Jo. Anything that happened between PJ and Amy would be slow and would benefit from some discretion at the moment.

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Amy invited herself behind the bar of the Imperial Hotel, absentmindedly combing her hair over her neck injury as she did so. Chris looked up from the breakfast she was serving what appeared to be a honeymooning couple and approached her.

"No luck with PJ, then?" she asked sympathetically. Amy shook her head, leaning side-on against the bar.

"He doesn't get it," she explained sadly. "I like how he understands me and cares about me, but I just want him to back off."

Chris leant against the bar opposite Amy, short red ringlets falling over her forehead. "You should talk to him," she suggested with a shrug, "he thinks the world of you. You've just got to let him know what you're feeling."

Amy let a bitter chuckle escape her. Her eyes were shining with what could be the beginning of tears. "How am I meant to tell him what I'm feeling when I've got no bloody idea myself?!"

Chris nodded sympathetically, reaching over to offer Amy a hug. The detective accepted awkwardly. Hugging Chris Riley was never the easy, warm sort of hug that PJ could give her. "You'll work it out," Chris soothed, rubbing Amy's back. Amy just let herself hang in Chris' arms momentarily, quite unsure of what to do.

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Finally, the mysterious suited man emerged into the public bar, talking in a hushed, yet very animated tone, to someone on the other end of his mobile phone call. Amy broke away from the publican, fixing the man with a curious stare. Today was the day of the marijuana shipment. No wonder he was stressed.

Amy glanced sideways at Chris quickly before heading over to the stairs. "I'm going upstairs," she announced, the words enough to tell Chris exactly what she was doing. The publican let her head hang back in frustration before she looked over to the suited man worriedly. He didn't seem to have noticed Amy's disappearance yet. And if Amy was right about him, hopefully he never would.

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PJ lowered the binoculars from his eyes, closing them as he let himself sink back into the driver's seat of the CI car. Mark sat beside him, fixing the shed with an intent stare as if something may happen if he looked away for only a moment.

The sound of a car muffler recaptured PJ's wavering attention and he returned the binoculars to his eyes, watching in curiosity as a man in his mid-thirties climbed out of the car and approached the shed, looking around in impatience and mumbling something to himself. He pulled out his mobile and began to talk.

"That's our guy," PJ announced as he near threw the binoculars onto the dashboard and jumped from the car, retrieving his gun from his belt. Back in the CI car, Mark grabbed the radio, presumably to alert the others to this situation. The suited man with the mobile phone mumbled something about pigs before raising his hands above his head, tossing the mobile to the ground and kicking it away. PJ was stunned that he surrendered so easily, only to hear the shouts of his other colleagues as they emerged from the surrounding bushland, guns drawn and aimed. "Too easy," PJ mumbled to himself, returning his gun to his belt as he watched Alex and Joss put the man under arrest. But something was beginning to bite at him. Who was on the other end of the phone?

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Amy closed the suited man's Imperial room door behind her, before looking around in bewilderment. It looked very ordinary, with a suitcase packed in the corner. She quickly scampered across the room, opening the surprisingly unlocked suitcase, only to reveal what looked like a pile of clothes.

She sighed to herself in disappointment – she'd really hoped that there'd be something there – before shoving the suits and pyjamas aside to reveal a large bag. She lifted it up to inspect the contents. She'd been in the job for long enough to know just what this was. Marijuana.

Suddenly, she could feel cold metal at the back of her head, sending shivers down her spine and goose bumps along her arms and legs. Her whole body froze, not even daring to breath. She closed her eyes tightly, praying that it wasn't who she thought it was.

"Bargirl," the suited man behind her sniggered, tightening his grip on his weapon, "nice try, detective."


	26. Ep 5: Tabula Rasa Pt4

**Part 4**

PJ leant against the wall of the interview room, narrowing his eyes as he looked down upon James Robertson – their suspect from the shed on Widgeree Road – who sat opposite Mark at the table. So far, all James had admitted to was accepting a shipment, but would clam up instantly as soon as the supplier and the phone call came up in the interview.

"You had to be collecting that marijuana from someone," PJ pointed out, "just save yourself from a few more charges and tell us who."

Robertson didn't respond, keeping his gaze fixed away from PJ. Mark looked up to meet the detective's eyes, deciding to try his own method of getting something out of him. "Mr. Robertson," he began, "you've got a pretty clean record and this going to put you inside, no doubt about it. But do you want to go down for the lot?"

Robertson looked up to them in what appeared to be vague curiosity. PJ rose an eyebrow at Mark in congratulations. It looked like he was going to make a breakthrough.

"Who was on the phone, Mr. Robertson?" Mark asked, only to be interrupted by Kelly peering through the doorframe, looking over them nervously.

"We just got a call from a patron down at the Imperial Hotel," Kelly explained to what was quite frosty reception. She'd just interrupted PJ and Mark's attempts to get James Robertson to point the finger. "Apparently Chris has just been assaulted at the pub."

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PJ raced over to Chris, grabbing her arm gently. He looked over her. She wasn't seriously injured. She had what looked to be a bad scratch on her cheek and a few bruises here and there, but was otherwise fine, albeit a little confused.

"Are you okay?" PJ asked her, looking her up and down. "What happened…"

He wasn't given the opportunity to finish before Chris cut him off. "Amy was looking into this guy staying at the pub. She went up to his room and then he hit me and followed her…I think he's got a gun."

Mark glanced over to PJ worriedly from where he stood just behind his shoulder. PJ braced himself on the bar, hanging his head sadly. It was clear to both Chris and Mark that he was struggling to deal with this, especially so soon after the fiasco at the hospital and her attack at the hands of Steven Prior.

PJ headed for the stairs, only to be restrained quite forcibly by Mark. "Mate," Mark told him gently, "you go up there, you're likely to get yourself and Amy killed. These are drug dealers, they won't hesitate…"

"Don't you think I bloody know that?!" PJ snapped, rounding on Mark with tears of fear brimming in his eyes. The silence in the bar that followed this outburst was deafening. The detective backed off slightly, relenting. "I don't want to lose her," he whispered softly, his voice barely audible, even in the relatively silent public bar, "I care about her too much."

"Then you have to understand that she can look after herself," Chris piped up from where she was leaning back against the bar. PJ and Mark spun to face her, the detective's eyes filling with tears. "That's all she wants you to understand."

PJ looked away from Chris, nodding to himself thoughtfully, closing his eyes to prevent tears from falling. He had always hated how he fell to pieces when the woman he loved was in danger. Maggie, Jo and now Amy…he could never hold it together and not turn into a blubbering mess. And especially now was not the time to go to pieces.

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Amy's grip on the bag of marijuana in her hands tightened slightly as she started to breathe again in short, ragged gasps. The barrel of the gun was still pushed up against the back of her head, still sending shivers of fear down her spine.

"Give me the marijuana," the man behind her demanded. She was reluctant to hand it over, instead tightening her grip even further. "Give it to me!"

She thrust it back over her shoulder, beginning to mouth a silent plead for help to PJ. The bag was snatched away from her and she quickly withdrew her hand. This was a different sort of terror to what Steven had put her through at the station. Then, she'd had no choice but to fight as best she could. Now, she couldn't do anything. Not a damn thing.

"Get up!" the man barked, prompting her to rise to shaky feet gingerly. Her whole body felt numb, like ice. Her brain was barely processing anything. She wasn't brave enough to even try to speak.

The man grabbed her by the shoulder roughly, throwing her up back first against the nearest wall. She stifled a groan of pain as best she could as she made contact with the wall, struggling to retain footing. She barely managed to pull herself upright again, not game enough to move away from the wall.

He kept the gun trained on her with his right hand, holding the marijuana bag tightly in his left. He backed away to the window, glancing back over his shoulder, only to shudder slightly at the drop to the ground. He looked back to Amy, narrowing his eyes as he looked her up and down. "Was this some sort of undercover job?" he demanded coldly. She couldn't answer, her throat had closed up in fear. The man at the other end of the room quickly lost patience with her, stamping his foot loudly. "Answer me or I'll blow your head off!"

Amy cringed, recoiling as best she could when she was already up against a solid pub wall. "No," she managed to reply in a shaky voice. All her years in the job could never have prepared her for this sort of fear. Maybe it was the lack of the gun on her hip or just the weakness of being recently injured and just out of hospital, but this was having more of an effect on her than anything like this had ever had before.

"Answer me!"

She looked away as he stormed across the room, shoving the barrel of the gun in her face. "No!" she cried desperately in reply, realising that it was quite reminiscent of her kidnap at the hands of Steven Prior years before. "I was doing this of my own accord, no one has any idea!"

The man seemed pleased at this, backing off Amy and beginning to pace the room's hard floor. He headed over to the bed, setting the marijuana down on the old quilt cover. Amy remained against the wall for several seconds, before realising that this was her only chance. She lunged for the suited man, grasping desperately for the gun in his hands. In the struggle, they both fell to the ground, her attacker hitting his head on the bedside table as he went down.

Amy retrieved the gun from his now motionless hand, backing away quickly as she trained it on his chest. She glanced over her shoulder to the closed door behind her, before making a break for it. She nearly tore the door off it's hinges as she took off down the hallway at a speed she'd never thought herself capable of, the gun clasped so tightly in her right hand that her knuckles were turning white.

As she thudded down the stairs, nearly tripping over her own feet in her desperation to get to the public bar and help, PJ emerged at the base on the stairs before her, eyes widened in relief at the sight of her. Almost as soon as she had gotten to the bottom of the stairs, she was whipped up into his arms and spun around in the air before being set back on the ground again.

Mark burst through the door to the stairs from the public bar, a huge smile spreading across his face as he caught sight of Amy safe in PJ's arms. He gently took the gun from Amy's hand as he headed up the stairs to the room to check on whatever had happened up there. After all, he could tell that Amy was in no position to tell him. She was too busy being fussed over by PJ.

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Amy looked up from where she sat at the table in the mess room, a cup of coffee being offered to her by PJ. She smiled to him in thanks and held it with both hands as she leant forward over the table. He sat down beside her, reaching over to rub her shoulder.

"He's going away," PJ explained, both immediately knowing that he was referring to their mysterious suited stranger who had been staying at the Imperial. She nodded thoughtfully, still not turning to face him. The silence between them was an uncomfortable one, something that neither of them very much enjoyed. "Chris was telling me that you didn't like me fussing over you."

She finally seemed to take notice of him, turning her head to face PJ, still holding the coffee cup firmly in her hands. "That's what I've been trying to tell you, Peej," she explained softly, lowering her voice just in case one of their snoopy colleagues had decided to eavesdrop. "I have been doing this job for nearly fourteen years now and I'm perfectly capable of looking after myself while I do it."

PJ nodded understandingly, withdrawing his hand from her shoulder and instead using it to gently lower her hands and the coffee cup to the table. Once the base of the mug was safely on the mess room table, he closed his hand around her right. "I'm scared of losing you, Amy," he pointed out in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper, "what we've got between us is really special, but if something ever happened to you…it'd be like Maggie and Jo all over again, but I don't know if I could pick myself up like I did before."

She fixed him with a saddened stare, her eyes widening as she took in the beginning of tears forming in his clear blue eyes. "PJ," she told his gently, not quite sure what she was going to say.

"I'm going to back off," he continued, "I promise. No more trying to wrap you up in cotton wool and keep you away from work. I just want you to be careful. The last few weeks have been torture."

Amy nodded, leaning in to kiss him softly. She pulled away just as their lips brushed, placing a finger on his mouth. "It's New Years Eve," she pointed out, "no more talk of what's been going wrong lately." She kissed him again, this time for slightly longer, before once more pulling away. "We're just going to focus on what's been going right. And we're going to look to next year." And with those words still ringing in PJ's ears, she pressed her lips against his gently, drawing into a long kiss that made them feel like they were the only ones in the world.

---------------------------------------------------

Amy and PJ headed into the public bar of the Imperial Hotel tentatively, horrified to see an obviously worse for wear Chris Riley behind the bar, serving drinks to her New Years' crowd. There weren't that many people there for nearly midnight on New Years Eve, just a few groups of people cluttered together around the public bar and dining room.

Chris smiled at the sight of them and, calling something over her shoulder to the other people behind the bar, headed over to the door of the Parlour. "I kept the Parlour free for you," she explained, opening the door and motioning them inside.

The rest of the officers had gathered, Joss sitting in one of the large, comfortable chairs with Kelly sitting on its right arm. Susie and Alex were leaning against one of the walls, while Mark was standing by a table with a few different bottles of drinks sitting on it.

Chris closed the door behind them as she scampered over to the drinks table, pouring a glass of champagne for PJ like the others had and a glass of lemonade for Amy.

She turned to face them as Amy and PJ took their drinks and headed over to one of the free chairs, Amy sitting in it and PJ leaning against the arm. Chris rose her glass of champagne to the officers milling around the Parlour before her, each one fixing her with an expectant expression.

"Now I know that this hasn't exactly been the best year for us," she explained, looking around to the coppers, each one's silent remembrance of the year that was evident in their eyes. "We've lost colleagues and mates, some to the big smoke and bigger things, some to the great beyond. And we've had some make unexpected returns."

Chris' smile in Amy's direction caused the detective flush bright red, lowering her face from view as PJ squeezed her shoulder encouragingly.

"But no matter how much we've had to come through to get here," Chris continued, her smile becoming bright and beaming, "we got here. We're not the same people we were twelve months ago. We've had to face a lot, especially in the last month or so, but we're still a team. You, the coppers, and me, who feeds you and gives you drinks."

A small chuckle seemed to pass through the group at Chris' words, quickly replaced by the previous silence as they each devoured the publican's speech.

"2007 has come and nearly gone," she concluded, "and 2008 is nearly upon us. It's time to put all of the bad stuff behind us and look to the future."

Chris' silence prompted each of the officers to raise their drinks in a quiet toast. As she lowered her drink from her lips, Amy found herself saying something she'd thought she'd never hear or even think of ever again. "Tabula rasa," she mused in a voice that was so soft that normally, her colleagues probably wouldn't have noticed, but the silence seemed to magnify it so the whole room heard.

She looked across at her colleagues, meeting their confused expressions with a smile. "It's Latin," she explained, "it basically means 'clean slate'. I think that's what we all need."

From beside her, PJ chimed in. "A chance to start over without the baggage of the past."

Each of the people milling around the Parlour nodded in agreement with Amy and PJ's words. As the bar beyond the door erupted into cheering and cries of "happy new year", each of them looked around, smiling as they rose their glasses again, the mood amongst them bright and easy for the first time in what felt like ages.

"Happy New Year!"


	27. Ep 6: Forgiven, Not Forgotten Pt1

**Episode 6: "Forgiven, Not Forgotten"**

**Summary: **_Susie and Alex are mortified when Jonesy returns to Mt. Thomas, leading Amy to uncover just what happened during her old colleague's last month in town._

_Author's Note: The large blocks of italic text are flashbacks._

**Part 1**

**_Lyrics in this part come from "Flame Trees" by Cold Chisel._**

He climbed out of his old white truck, slamming the door behind him as a woman with short blonde curls drew up beside him, a little boy of no more than four pulled close to her chest in her arms. He reached over, squeezing her shoulders tightly as he kissed the top of her head.

They stood before the Mt. Thomas police station, a family, each one staring at the familiar building that they once called work with mixed emotions mounting up inside of them. Beyond the walls, what reception would they receive from the people they once called colleagues and friends?

_I'm just savouring familiar sights_

_We shared some history, this town and I_

Finally, he spoke out, his voice seeming to echo in the early morning atmosphere of Mt. Thomas. "I suppose we should go inside then, huh?"

The woman at his side nodded, shifting the young boy in her arms. He was getting far too big to hold these days. "Yeah," she agreed with a hopeful smile creeping across her face as they headed up the path to the doors into the reception area, their hearts doing back flips as they tried to subdue the nervousness running through their bodies and making them wonder why they weren't running a mile in the other direction.

---------------------------------------------------

Amy slipped her black jacket off her shoulders, hanging it over the back of her chair. She stood alone in the empty CI office, looking out into the muster room where PJ was reading Alex's test over his and Susie's shoulders, occasionally pausing to give the Acting Sergeant a gentle tease before quickly apologising. Kelly and Joss were sitting at their desks, their diligence towards their paperwork interrupted every so often for a brief bickering match over something or another. She didn't know if she was the only one to notice that Kelly and Joss seemed to be a lot nicer to each other lately. And they seemed to be getting a lot closer. If she didn't know better, she'd say that they were in a relationship.

She shoved her curiosity about the true nature of Kelly and Joss' friendship to the back of her mind as she wandered over to PJ's desk, stopping as she always did to examine his photos. She'd managed to work out what most of them were of. There was Ben's farewell, Tom's birthday, his mother and a few other miscellaneous moments, some that she could vaguely remember hearing about, others that were clearly before her time.

The top drawer of his desk was sitting half-open, exposing what appeared to be the bottom half of a wedding photo. Curiosity got the better of her as she gently lifted it out, only to gasp in surprise. The man wearing a pressed and probably brand-new black suit was none other than Evan Jones. He had a huge smile on his face and his eyes sparkled in a way she'd never thought she'd see. In his arms was a woman about his age, with short blonde curls and wearing one of the most beautiful wedding dresses that Amy had ever seen before in her life. Their outfits seemed quite simple, but it seemed to suit them in a way.

She fixed her eyes on the woman in Jonesy's arms, examining everything from the delicate blonde curls to her beautiful blue eyes. It was nearly impossible to comprehend the idea that Evan Jones was married and it wasn't to Susie. For so long, she had associated Jonesy and Susie together, so who was the blonde in the wedding dress?

PJ returned to the CI office, his face faltering at the sight of the picture frame in Amy's hands. He nodded understandingly and closed the door behind him, meeting Amy's curious eyes.

Amy turned to face him, her dark ponytail bouncing around at the back of her head. "Who's she?" she asked, holding the photo out to PJ, letting him take it with both hands. He ran his thumb along the woman's cheek, smiling distantly at the memory.

"Her name's Tess Gallagher," PJ explained as he handed the photo back out to Amy. "She replaced you for a little while in late 2006. About a month, actually."

"She and Jonesy got married?" she asked, knowing immediately that it was a stupid question. Of course they got married.

PJ nodded in confirmation. "They did," he admitted as his smile faded slightly, "but we couldn't believe it when she came to town. We hadn't seen her since she left Mt. Thomas in 2003. Tom, Jonesy and I couldn't comprehend that she was back in town after all that time…"

_Susie glanced up briefly from her paperwork, watching as Jonesy and Alex emerged from the mess room, where they had obviously been having one of their infamous "blokey best-mate" discussions. And it would be a miracle if she hadn't been the subject. It had been over a year since the whole Jason Tyler debacle, yet conversation between her and "the boys" was still stilted and uncomfortable. She hated the tension – she knew it was beginning to affect their work – but she was beginning to run out of patience with them. And the fact that no matter what happened, it always ended up the same between them. Jonesy and Alex being best mates and her being the speed bump of their friendship._

_Just as Mark sat another report down in front of her, the buzzer sounded out in the reception area, causing the gathering of uniforms to look up to the monitor in surprise. In the reception area, a woman in her early thirties stood, wearing a dark pants suit which looked as though it could have easily come from Amy Fox's wardrobe._

_Most of the uniforms returned to their duties, while Jonesy just stood, his eyes widening as recognition set in and he began shaking his head in disbelief. Alex grabbed his shoulder, finally stirring him back to life. "You okay, mate?" he asked, only to be roughly pushed aside as Jonesy rushed out into the reception area, giving a mumble of "it can't be" under his breath._

_A smile spread across the woman's face, the likes of which Jonesy hadn't seen in sometime, as she took in the Senior Constable on the other side of the counter. "Evan," she said, her eyes beginning to sparkle._

_They stood, frozen in time, for what could have been only a few minutes, but could have easily been several hours. Suddenly, Jonesy stirred back to life, unable to get the swing door open fast enough. He ushered Tess through, looking her up and down in pure amazement. He tried to speak, but every time he opened his mouth, he found himself tongue-tied. Finally, he settled for the first somewhat logical thing to come to his fuddled mind. "What are you doing here?"_

"_I'm here to take up the CI job," she explained as her smile broadened. "I heard PJ needed some help."_

_Jonesy's eyes lit up at this, his heart screaming out for joy in his chest. Suddenly, his gaze fell upon her stomach, which was a lot smaller than it had been the last time they'd seen each other. "What happened to…" he trailed off, suddenly kicking himself for not finding out what had become of Tess' unborn child._

"_The baby?" she finished for him, her hand falling to her stomach, the movement lacking the protectiveness that it had once had. "It's a boy," she explained, her eyes seeming to become forlorn as she thought about her young child. "He's in Melbourne with mum. I thought it might be best if he stays there until I'm settled in and living somewhere other than the pub."_

_His face seemed to lose the shine now, seeming to mirror Tess' forlorn expression. She nodded understandingly. It had been no secret that Jonesy had always wished that the baby could be his. Even though it was Josh's, he'd still wanted to raise it as his own. Few men would want to do that._

"_What's his name?" he asked quietly, leaning back against the door into the muster room, just in case one of his colleagues had decided to listen in._

_Tess seemed slightly uncomfortable, before a sad smile spread across her lips. "Evan Joseph Gallagher," she replied in a soft voice, her eyes becoming misty. Jonesy seemed to smile at this, still clearly able to remember the day Tess left Mt. Thomas and Jo had suggested Joanna and Joseph as middle names._

"_Nice name," he said, his smile becoming somewhat playful, "good namesakes."_

_She giggled at this, her eyes closing as she laughed in that way they always did. They soon found themselves immersed in a pleasant silence, interrupted only by Mark forcing the door open, causing Jonesy to jump away in surprise._

"_Evan," he began, only to be halted by the sight of the blonde standing behind the counter, awkwardly shifting the weight of the bag over her shoulder. "And you would be…" Mark looked over to Jonesy briefly, but Tess didn't give him the chance to respond._

"_Senior Detective Tess Gallagher," she introduced with a broad smile, extending a confident hand to the sergeant. "And you're Sergeant Mark Jacobs."_

_Mark nodded, glancing down to his badge and smiling. "Well," he responded with a smile, "you'd better come through then and meet the team."_

_As Mark disappeared back into the muster room, Tess looked over to Jonesy, shrugging as she shot him a smile that seemed to be tinged with longing. "I guess I'd better."_

_Jonesy remained in the reception area as Tess followed Mark through to the muster room, still not quite able to believe it. After all this time, Tess Gallagher was back in Mt. Thomas. And it was obvious that whatever had been cut short when she'd moved to Melbourne was still as fresh as ever._

The sound of the buzzer in the reception area startled the officers in the station back to life, causing Susie and Alex to look up from where she was helping him study, ending another bickering match between Kelly and Joss and causing Amy, PJ and Mark to emerge from their offices, all looking to the monitor in curiosity.

Silence immediately fell among them as they recognised the three figures in the reception area, the two adults looking as uneasy as the officers in the muster room.

"Oh no," Susie mumbled to herself as she climbed to her feet, storming off to the mess room at a brisk pace. Alex tried to follow her disappearance, only to be met with a slamming door. He stood in the corridor, uncertain of what he was expected to do, until he instead disappeared out the back entrance, mumbling something about an audit of the property cage.

The remaining officers remained at their posts, each quite unsure of what exactly they were supposed to do. Finally, Amy let out a heavy sigh and pushed past PJ gently, calling back over her shoulder that she would get it. Mark looked over to PJ with concern written into his features, before PJ simply shrugged.

"Let her deal with it," he told them, retreating back into his office, letting the door slam closed loudly behind him. If they were back in Mt. Thomas, then everything they'd spent the first week of the New Year creating may as well have been for nothing. Susie was never going to handle this well.

---------------------------------------------------

Amy closed the door to the muster room behind her as she approached the counter, her eyes lighting up at the sight of Jonesy standing on the opposite side of the counter, arm draped loosely around the shoulders of what had to be Tess Gallagher, a blonde toddler squirming about in her arms.

"Jonesy?" she said in disbelief. Even though she had seen him on the monitor, it was still hard to believe that he was back in Mt. Thomas. Especially when the way that everyone seemed to clam up at the mention of his name told her that he hadn't left in the most wonderful of ways.

His face seemed to mirror her's perfectly. "Amy Fox?" he asked, looking her up and down. His surprise was soon replaced by concern as his eyes fell upon her cheek, neck and what was visible of her arms. "What happened?"

She looked over her arms briefly and rose a hand to her neck, flinching slightly. She didn't have to wear the dressings anymore, but the cuts on her cheek and neck were still stitched up and sore to touch. She tried to dismiss the topic with a shrug. "Don't worry about it," she assured him weakly. Surprise took over again. "What are you doing here?"

"To see how life was going here," Jonesy explained, withdrawing his arm from Tess' shoulders as she set the four-year-old Evan Gallagher on the ground, watching him protectively as he wandered around the reception area, taking in everything there was to see. "You know."

Amy nodded at this, after all, she did know. She'd lost count of the number of times when she was back in Melbourne, lying awake at night, wondering what life was bringing to her old friends back in Mt. Thomas. And there'd been no news until her superior had informed her about Tom's death. It surprised her that Jonesy had managed to stay away for as long as he had, really.

Jonesy nodded with a sad, longing smile, before suddenly realising that Tess and Amy had never met. He motioned over to the detective across from him. "Ah, Tess," he explained, "this is Senior Detective Amy Fox. Amy, this is Senior Detective Tess Gallagher."

Tess extended a hand across the counter and Amy reached out to shake it tentatively. She was feeling more puzzled than ever. Tess and Jonesy seemed nice enough, so why was everyone so unwilling to talk about them?

"Should we come through?" Tess piped up as she headed over to the far corner of the room and scooped her son back up into her arms.

Amy glanced back over her shoulder and, remembering Susie and Alex's reactions, shook her head sadly. "I don't really think so," she told them with a shake of her head, "no. It might be better if you stay away for a bit."

Jonesy nodded, looking over to Tess, shrugging for a lack of anything else to do. "I suppose we'll head over to the Imperial then," he announced, partly for his sake as well as Amy's, "see if Chris can give us a room for a few nights."

Amy nodded, calling out a weak farewell as Jonesy and Tess left, talking to each other in disappointed, yet unsurprised tones. She watched them close the door behind them, shuffling her weight from foot to foot uncomfortably.

As nice as Jonesy and Tess were, she knew that there was something that someone wasn't telling her. It was the only way she could explain why Susie and Alex had reacted so badly to them and why she'd had to find out about the wedding after snooping through PJ's open drawer.


	28. Ep 6: Forgiven, Not Forgotten Pt2

**Part 2**

Amy returned to her office, looking up to PJ, who was busy shuffling papers at his desk. He halted as soon as he heard her close the door behind her and looked up to her expectantly. "So how are they doing?"

She headed over to her desk, sat down and leant across to PJ, lowering her voice to barely more than a whisper. "They seem to be fine," she pointed out, "they just want to visit and see how life's going in Mt. Thomas these days."

PJ leant across his own desk, lowering his own voice to scarcely louder than Amy's. "I really wish that things had turned out better between Susie and Jonesy, I really do," he confided softly, "they made really good friends. Even if they couldn't make it as lovers."

"What went wrong?" Amy asked in a hushed voice, glancing out to the muster room where Susie was returning, looking up at the monitors just to make sure that the coast was clear.

He sat back, his eyes becoming misty as his mind drifted back. "Things were never really right between them again after Susie dumped that Jason Tyler guy. Tess coming back was only ever going to make things even worse…"

_Tess looked out the passenger side window of the patrol car, uncertain of what to say to the man sitting beside her in the driver's seat. Normally she would have taken the CI car, but PJ had already taken it for the day and drafted Susie in for a job. That was probably a good thing; Susie seemed very uncomfortable around Jonesy._

"_So where are you living now?" she queried, looking over to him expectantly. He stole a sideways glance, smiling to himself._

"_Lex and I moved in with PJ about a year ago," he explained, "Suse had just moved out of the Imperial and he was looking for a couple of people to help out with the mortgage." He sighed sadly, returning his focus to the road ahead. "He's been hanging around that big house on his own since Ben left."_

_She nodded, looking away again. Silence fell between them, before Tess decided that the best thing may be to keep the conversation flowing at all costs. "So where did Ben go to, anyway?"_

"_Perth," Jonesy answered quickly, bad memories of what could only be called a bad time in his life returning in an unpleasant rush. "He wasn't himself after he shot Susie's husband. He totally lost it when Jo died. Then Susie dumped him and I suppose that was it."_

"_Poor bugger," Tess whispered in awe, looking away. She focused her gaze somewhere in her lap as she began to wring her hands nervously. "How did PJ cope with losing Jo?"_

"_Better than you'd think," Jonesy replied sadly, "he threw himself into work completely. He had some old mate of his around at the time, Nick Schultz or something like that. And there was another detective who arrived then too. She probably was a good help to him."_

_She looked back to Jonesy in surprise, raising her eyebrows. "She?" she questioned with a smile, "you don't think that they…"_

_Jonesy let a loud laugh escape him, shrugging his shoulders with a smile. "If they did, then they're the masters of secrecy. Then again, I suppose I was a bit preoccupied just before she left."_

_Tess' smile broadened, before fading away slowly. Jonesy looked back to the road, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel nervously. "You wouldn't happen to not be doing anything tonight, would you?" he asked, the butterflies in his stomach making him feel quite uneasy. He couldn't help but remember all the times that he had gotten romance wrong. Tess, Donna, Susie… Noticing the uneasy look on Tess' face, he quickly added, "You can bring little Evan too if you want. I'm sure Alex and PJ would love to meet the little guy."_

_She thought this over for a short moment, somewhat put at ease by the news that Alex and PJ would be at home too. Finally, she nodded in reply. "Sure," she said with a smile, "that'd be great." Her face suddenly became serious as she remembered the blonde Senior Constable back at the station. "What about…"_

"_What about what?" Jonesy demanded, a little too hotly for his liking. He quickly swore to tone down his voice when speaking to Tess in the future. He was lucky enough that he'd gotten a second chance, he knew that there wouldn't be a third._

"_Susie," Tess finished quietly, a little taken aback by Jonesy's less than gentle tone. "She's always acting really strangely around you."_

_Jonesy let out a soft, bitter laugh, looking over to Tess. "Believe me," he assured her firmly, "there is nothing going on with Susie. It's all in the past. She's just got some sort of problem with men in general…do yourself a favour and don't ask."_

_Tess nodded with uncertainty, forcing a smile for Jonesy's sake. As much as she was going to enjoy that night at Jonesy's house, she couldn't help but worry about Susie and whatever was going on between her and Jonesy. It was going to come back to bite them, she could feel it._

Chris looked up expectantly from where she was putting away some recently washed glasses underneath the bar, only to immediately brighten at the sight of Tess and Jonesy heading into the public bar, little Evan in Jonesy's arms.

"Jonesy!" she exclaimed, racing around the bar and near squashing the toddler in his arms as she struggled to give him a big hug in greeting. She then turned to Tess and instead offered a handshake. She knew Tess wasn't ever really the touchy-feely type. "I don't believe it! What are you doing back here?"

Jonesy chuckled, shifting Tess' son in his arms as his wife watched on. "Oh, you know me, Chrissie," he said with a cheeky smile, "can't seem to keep away from this place for too long."

Chris nodded as she backed away, looking the pair up and down. "Not everyone's going to be so happy to see you, you know."

"I gathered that much," Jonesy agreed with a dismal nod, "I went to the station and Amy said I probably wouldn't be welcome. Anyway, how long has she been back?"

The publican ushered them through to the Parlour where they could have some privacy, closing the door behind them. "A little over a month," she replied as her smile faded away slowly, "she came back with Homicide to investigate Tom's murder." Her eyes suddenly seemed to become angry and she folded her arms firmly across her chest. "Why didn't you come back for the funeral anyway? Nick made it!"

"We wanted to come," Tess explained quietly, gently taking her fussing son from Jonesy's arms, "but we didn't know how Susie and Alex would take it. We didn't want to make things worse at the Boss' funeral."

Chris nodded in understanding, reaching out to play with little Evan's blonde curls, a smile forming on her face. Tess held the child out to her, earning a surprised look from Chris. "You can hold him, if you'd like."

Chris' eyes lit up as she took the squirming four-year-old from Tess' arms, looking quite out of her depth with a toddler in her arms. "I think I now know why I stuck to serving drinks," she joked with a weak laugh, handing the child back over to Tess.

Watching Jonesy and Tess together with the child brought a fond smile to Chris' face. They made a good family. If only they'd worked that out sooner, then they could have saved everyone a bit of heartache.

---------------------------------------------------

PJ leant against the wall beside the property cage, watching sceptically as Alex pulled out miscellaneous items, only to fix them with a curious stare and return them to their shelf. The Acting Sergeant didn't seem to notice PJ's presence and if he did, he wasn't acknowledging it.

"How are you going?" PJ asked tentatively from his post, folding his arms across his chest. Alex tossed a filthy old Mudlarks beanie back onto its shelf in the property cage, spinning to face him with a hopeless expression on his face.

"How do you think?" he demanded, shrugging as he leant back against the wall opposite PJ. "The happy, married couple are back in town." His voice became bitter as he referenced Tess and Jonesy, something that didn't escape PJ's attention.

"I don't think they're back here to hurt you or Susie," PJ pointed out gently, "Amy spoke to them, they're just wondering about how the old crew are travelling." His gaze softened even further. "A lot's happened since they left."

Alex shrugged again, his eyes showing the real pain. He didn't like the resentment that had formed between him and Jonesy over the last year. "You didn't see the way Susie was the day of the wedding, PJ," he told him firmly, "she's one of my best mates and he just tore her heart to pieces for some woman who could never give him the time of day."

PJ looked away, trying to regather his thoughts. "The heart wants what it wants, Alex," he said with a shrug. Alex opened his mouth to argue with this, but PJ decided not to give him the chance. "It's not an excuse for whatever happened between him and Susie, but it explains what was going on. I remember the way Jonesy and Tess used to look at each other; they had something really special between them. I'm surprised it took them so long to work it out again later…"

_Tess approached Jonesy, wincing slightly in sympathy at the sight of the scratches on his right cheek. He looked up from his desk, his usually bright and comforting smile now quite weak and pained. "Tessy…" he whispered in surprise, spinning his chair to face her. "I thought you'd be at home with Evan…"_

_She grabbed Kelly's chair from her desk as she moved herself to his side, reaching up to his cheek to turn it so she could examine the cuts more easily._

"_I left him with Kelly," she explained softly, running a thumb along one of Jonesy's grazes. He flinched quite visibly under her touch, closing his eyes as he recoiled in pain. "That hurts, doesn't it?"_

_He winced again as Tess withdrew her thumb, her hand moving down his cheekbone to his chin. She rubbed it gently, her soft touch making his heart flutter about in his chest. "It's nothing," he lied quickly, his voice lacking conviction, "it's just a scratch."_

_Tess let her blue eyes meet Jonesy's, the simple connection sending shivers of excitement through her whole body, the likes of which she hadn't felt since he had grabbed her arm in the locker room all those years before._

"_You saved my life out there today, Evan," she told him in a voice that was scarcely louder than a whisper. "If you hadn't have acted as quickly as you did, I wouldn't be here right now."_

_He shrugged, hoping that Tess couldn't tell that the butterflies in his stomach were going completely insane with joy and nervousness. "It was nothing," he assured her with a weak smile, "anyone else would have done the same thing."_

"_But anyone else didn't," she reminded him, tears of gratitude filling her eyes, "you did. You've always been the one who's looked out for me, even when I didn't want you to."_

_Jonesy laughed weakly, pulling away from Tess' touch, letting his gaze flit around the muster room, just in case someone had came back late for some odd reason. "I've interfered, you mean."_

"_No, Evan," Tess said with a shake of her head, eyes shining by the light of Jonesy's overhead lamp, "even after I'd married Josh, even when I was pregnant with his baby, you still looked after me." She paused, her voice suddenly losing any of disdain that she had treated him with in the past. "You loved me."_

_His smile faded away as he reached out, running a thumb along her cheekbone gently, as she had done just moments before. "I still do, Tessy," he told her gently, "I never stopped. Susie Raynor…Donna Maitland…they mean nothing to me. Nothing compared to the way you do. I've only ever wanted you to let me love you."_

_She lowered her gaze weakly as Jonesy leant in, closing his eyes as he kissed her right cheek gently. Instantly, he regretted it as he pulled away, wincing in pain as the pain flared up on his cheek. _

_Tess reached out to them, to rub them again, only to remember his previous reaction._

"_I'm sorry," he apologised with one of his goofy smiles on his face, "I should've known better…"_

_She rose a finger to his lips to silence him and moved in, kissing his cheek softly. Despite the pain her touch caused him, the tingle on his lips on his cheek made his eyes light up in pleasure._

_Their eyes met as Tess pulled away, a silent, mutual decision being made. Finally, they both moved in, eyes closing as their lips touched together, the rush of the connection sending both of their hearts racing._


	29. Ep 6: Forgiven, Not Forgotten Pt3

**Part 3**

**_Lyrics in this part come from "Forgiven, Not Forgotten" by The Corrs and "Call Me When You're Sober" by Evanescence._**

Susie opened the door to her locker, letting her head sink forward against the inside of the door. She closed her eyes, trying to steady her breathing as she took in what exactly had just happened. Evan Jones and Tess Gallagher were back in Mt. Thomas. After everything that had happened back nearly two years ago, she was surprised that he'd have the guts to return. Yet here he was.

She sighed heavily as she removed her head from the locker door and slammed it shut, turning to lean back and sink down to the floor of the mess room. She pulled her knees up close to her chest, her eyes shining with what could be the beginning of tears.

In some ways, she still hated him. He had never known what it was she'd wanted from him and, because of this, was constantly letting her down. The whole Jason Tyler fiasco was proof enough of that and so was the Donna Maitland saga of their lives. But she was finding it harder and harder each day to keep up the anger. It was turning her into someone she hated to be, especially to Alex, who had done nothing but stick up for her.

She'd really hoped he'd show up at the funeral. She would have been civil, even if only for the sake of the Boss. Maybe it would have proved to her that, no matter how many times their relationship had gone wrong, she and Jonesy could still, somehow, be friends.

But instead, he'd decided to show up now, just at a time in her life when she wasn't prepared to handle him. She was trying to live by what they'd all promised on New Years Eve – a "blank slate" – but it wasn't as easy as Amy and the others had made it sound. In fact, it was only making her remember the past more…

_Susie headed into the Imperial Hotel, quickly catching sight of her colleagues gathered around one of their usual tables. Tom was missing, not that that was any surprise, but everyone else had met there. Alex was obviously trying to impress Tess with a story, probably an exaggeration on what once might have been the truth, while PJ and Jonesy laughed, occasionally interrupting to point out what really happened. Kelly and Joss were both standing at the pool table with Mark, who was watching on as the two bickered over who was winning._

_She headed over to the table, taking the empty seat between PJ and Alex. Even if she still wasn't speaking to Alex, she felt more comfortable around him than Jonesy. Especially since Jonesy had now become so wrapped up in his own world, or Tess' world to be more exact. He liked her, there was no doubt about that._

"_Suse!" Alex exclaimed as she sat down beside him. "Now, you can tell Tess that I faced down that lion bravely, despite a faulty weapon!"_

_Susie's eyes filled with doubt as she looked at Alex, only to be interrupted by Jonesy's unusually quiet voice. "He was about to piss his pants in fear until I winged it with my gun," he explained, his eyes meeting Susie's briefly. It lasted less than half a second, but it was enough to leave the both of them uneasy. "Let's go," he said, turning to Tess beside him, earning a quick nod for his troubles. PJ and Alex called their farewells as the pair headed out the door of the public bar and into the night, walking a little too close together for Susie's suspicion not to twig._

"_I'll be back," she told Alex and PJ hurriedly, roughly shoving her chair back under the table, "I've just got to grab something from my car…"_

_She disappeared out of the pub, freezing almost as soon as the door had closed behind her. Standing less than five metres away were Tess and Jonesy, Tess with her back against the side of Jonesy's truck while he kept his lips pressed firmly against her's. And Tess was loving every second of it. Even in the dim glow coming from the overhead lights, she could tell that this wasn't the first time, either._

_She had to get out of there. She quickly pulled her jacket tighter around her frame as she headed over to her car as quickly as she dared with raising Tess or Jonesy's suspicion, head down. After several seconds of fumbling with her car keys, she finally managed to unlock the door and flop down into the driver's seat, her breathing well out of control._

_All alone, staring out, watching her life go by_

_When her days are grey and her nights are black_

_Different shades of mundane_

Jonesy dumped the suitcase on the bed, turning to face his wife. Tess sat her son on the floor of room seven of the Imperial Hotel, watching him out of the corner of her eye as he wandered around the room, finally deciding to preoccupy himself with the television remote.

"I can't say this is quite what I expected," he remarked with a broad smile, only to earn a saddened one from Tess. His bravado softened instantly. "Aw, Tessy," he soothed, reaching out to caress her cheek with his hand, "what's wrong?"

Tess pulled away, shaking her head. "This, Evan," she told him firmly, "this is what is wrong. A town that we both once belonged to has virtually turned on us. Whatever happened at the station that night between you and Susie has made all of the police officers think that we're the bad guys!"

Jonesy reached out, pulling Tess into his arms and holding her close to his chest. She didn't fight him, instead letting herself sink further into his embrace. "I'm going to sort it out, Tessy," he assured her, burying his face into her blonde curls as he tried to determine just how he would go about it. "I promise. The next time we leave Mt. Thomas, it'll be on good terms."

---------------------------------------------------

Alex invited himself into the mess room, quickly noticing Susie sitting on the floor in front of the lockers, looking lost and alone. He closed the door behind him and joined her on the floor, crossing his legs as he sat down. "I was worried about you."

Susie looked away, laughing sadly. She shook her head in disbelief. "Worried," she mumbled. He nodded as this, reaching over to drape an arm around her shoulders.

"You're my best mate these days, Suse," he told her gently, "you're the one who's going to get me through these exams. And you're going to keep kicking my arse into line until I get the hang of this Sergeant gig."

She turned to face him, her tear-stained cheeks catching the mid-day light as it streamed in through the window. "Yeah?" she asked him softly.

He nodded, squeezing her shoulders. "Yeah," he affirmed, his smile broadening, "anyway, you're a better mate to me than Evan Jones ever was. You're still helping me out even after I dumped you."

Her face brightened slightly at this as she forced a disbelieving smile. "You dumped me?" she asked in false indignation. "Is that what you call it?"

"I ended the relationship, remember?" Alex reminded with a cheeky smile. Susie hit him as her forced smile broadened weakly.

"Is that what you call a relationship?!" she demanded with what could be the beginning of weak laughter. "You just completely backed off!"

Alex sat back, nodding to himself as he looked away, the mood sobering instantly. "But we're still here for each other," he pointed out thoughtfully, "that's what counts…"

_Alex leant over Susie's desk, resting a hand on the overhead lamp, only to withdraw it in pain. He gave it a painful shake, only to then shoot Susie a cheeky smile. "Those things get bloody hot," he told her, only to earn an inaudible mumble from Susie for his troubles. "Hey, you can't ignore me and Jonesy forever, you know."_

"_Piss off, Alex," she spat, keeping her head down so that he wouldn't see what was most likely the beginning of tears in her eyes. Tess and Jonesy hadn't left all that long ago and she had accidentally overheard their conversation about some fancy French restaurant that Jonesy had once almost asked her to._

_Alex wasn't that easily fobbed off. He reached out, lifting her chin so that he could meet her eyes. Immediately, he knew that something had to be very wrong. He grabbed the nearest seat and pulled himself up beside her. She spun her chair around so that they were face-to-face._

"_Suse," he comforted quietly, letting his head hang to one side slightly as he surveyed the blonde, "what's going on?"_

_A loud sob managed to escape as she made a futile attempt to wipe away her tears with the back of her hand. "Evan bloody Jones, that's what's going on!"_

_Alex nodded, lowering his head momentarily. "He really loves you, you know."_

"_Yeah?" Susie asked, her voice teeming with indignation. "Then tell me why he's still not trying to make a move even though it's been over six months since I broke up with Jason Tyler?!"_

"_Oh, you know Jonesy," Alex said with a weak laugh, "what to do with his emotions isn't exactly one of his strongest points. He doesn't like to talk about how he feels. He comes from one of those sorts of families."_

_She began shaking her head, hoping that it might help to dismiss the tears. It wasn't doing any good in the slightest. "I know what he's like, Alex."_

"_He'll make a move soon, I can feel it," Alex assured her, reaching over to give her shoulder an encouraging squeeze. "I know he is."_

"_Is he now?" Susie demanded. "Then why did I catch him at the pub last night with his tongue down Tess Gallagher's throat?!"_

_Alex's eyes suddenly filled with sympathy as he realised what was going on. Whatever was left of Susie's composure seemed to crumble as he stood up and pulled her head close to his heart, rubbing her back supportively. Finally she pulled away, laughing weakly as she tried to mop her tears away._

"_It was stupid," she told him, looking away, not brave enough to meet his eyes, "I was probably only ever the rebound girl. He probably never cared about me at all."_

_She stood up and grabbed her car keys, heading for the exit to the car park. Alex lurched after her, grabbing her wrist and spinning her around to face him._

"_He does care about you," Alex pointed out firmly, "even if it's not in that way."_

"_Yeah?" she snapped, tearing her arm free of Alex's grasp. "If I'd known that, then maybe I wouldn't have fought to save his life and career so many times!" And with that, Susie took off down the corridor, her heavy footfalls echoing through the station as Alex passed a hand across his tired eyes._

_Should've let you fall_

_Lose it all _

Amy looked up as PJ returned to the CI office, passing her as he made a beeline for his chair. "I gather Alex is with Susie?"

He nodded as he sat down in his chair, slumping over his desk as Tess and Jonesy's wedding picture lying on Amy's desk caught his eye. "What are you doing with that?"

She looked down to the picture, picking it up again and turning it over in her hands. "I'm just struggling with all of this, you know," she replied with a shrug, her eyes remaining fixed to the happy couple in the photo, "Susie and Jonesy always seemed so close. It's just hard to believe that somehow, the whole town has turned on him." Amy appealed to PJ pleadingly, shaking her head. "I just don't get it at all."

PJ sat back, reaching over to take the photo from Amy's hands. He looked at Tess and Jonesy, unable to hide the smile at the thought that at least one in-office relationship had finished with a happy ending. And after everything Tess had gone through with Jack Lawson, he was glad that it was her. But there was still the sadness and regret that Susie and Jonesy hadn't even been able to salvage a friendship or even some degree of respect for one another from their experiences together.

"No," he admitted, sitting the photo down on the desk between the photos of Ben's farewell and Tom's birthday, "me neither."


	30. Ep 6: Forgiven, Not Forgotten Pt4

**Part 4**

Amy sat back against the window, fixing PJ with a look of confusion as he returned with two mugs of coffee, one for each of them. He glanced out into the muster room to make sure that none of them colleagues were watching before stealing a quick kiss. Almost as soon as he'd broken away, he could see the bewilderment in her eyes.

"I still don't get where exactly it all went wrong," Amy explained with a shrug. "Where was it that everyone turned on Jonesy and Tess? I just don't understand."

PJ sighed as he considered Amy's question and joined her side, shrugging thoughtfully. "Working within the station was getting to be impossible," he told her, eyes shining sadly in remembrance, "Tess had only been back a few weeks and she'd managed to make things worse in those few weeks than anyone else could have given a whole year. She'd torn a huge rift between Susie and Jonesy and Alex was becoming very divided in his loyalties to Susie and to Jonesy. But nothing was going to be able to go back to the way it used to be; Tess and Jonesy were far too close for that…"

_Tess and Jonesy sat on the couch of the house he shared with Alex and PJ, watching as little Evan toddled around the living room, constantly finding a way to get into everything he wasn't meant to. There was something oddly comfortable about this, sitting around like a family, enjoying takeaway from the pub. Something that they both regretted missing out on over the last few years._

_The CD played hummed out some familiar tune in the next room, while little Evan sang along, or tried to would be the more appropriate term for it. Tess watched as her two-year-old son toddled over to what looked like a DVD cabinet._

"_Come on, Evvie!" she told him as she scooped him up into her arms, despite his squirmed and squealed protests. "You don't want to play in there, do you?" Jonesy found himself trying to suppress a laugh at Tess' 'baby talk' as she sat little Evan down with his beloved toy police car – the only present Josh had ever given him, apparently. "Oh, look at this!" Tess said as she picked up the police car and ran it over the carpet. It made a siren noise not too dissimilar to a real police siren. "It's like the cars at Mummy's work, isn't it?"_

_The toddler nodded as he took the car from his mother, running it back and forth across the carpet as Tess had done just seconds before. He imitated the toy car's sirens with his mouth, something that didn't fail to earn a laugh from Jonesy._

_Tess sat back beside him, resting her arm back behind her head as she curled up against the back of the couch. "What's so funny?" she asked with a smile. Jonesy just shook his head, his smile broadening._

"_I could never really see you doing baby talk," he said with a teasing smile, causing Tess to beat him over the head playfully with the cushion beside her. As soon as she had lowered it, his expression seemed to become more serious. "You're really in your element with Evan, you know."_

_She nodded, looking back to little Evan, who appeared to be quickly tiring of the police car and was now eyeing of a table littered in photos – PJ, Alex and Jonesy's – as though he might try to climb on top._

"_I'd better grab him before he does any real damage," Tess said with a laugh as she climbed off the couch, whisking Evan back up into her arms. She seemed to automatically and flawlessly switch back into baby talk. "You just can't keep your fingers off Uncle Evan's stuff, can you?" she told her son, shifting him in her arms. "He mightn't let us come around again if you keep playing with his stuff."_

_Jonesy laughed, motioning to Tess and Evan with his half-empty bottle of Coca-Cola. "Nah, let him play," he told Tess with a smile, "Lex probably won't care and PJ's got a soft spot for kids."_

"_Still," Tess responded, immediately switching persona's back to normal Tess, "I don't want him in the habit of touching other people's things."_

_Jonesy just shrugged, knowing that he was never going to win against Tess and watched as she sat Evan down with his toy police car again. He seemed to fix her with a pleading look that was begging for something more entertaining._

"_Hey mate," Jonesy remarked suddenly, easing himself off the couch and crouching down on the floor beside Evan, "why don't we play…" he looked around, trying to come up with a good name for it. Finally, he went with the first thing that came into his head, "police chasey."_

_Tess couldn't restrain a laugh as she watched Jonesy climb to his feet and disappear off to his bedroom, only to return with a matchbox car that was about half the size of Evan's police car, if not smaller._

"_Now," Jonesy explained, unknowingly slipping into a baby voice of his own, "I'll be the big bad bank robber and you're the copper who's going to stop me."_

_Tess buried her head in her hand as Jonesy began to crawl around the room, making car noises with his mouth, being followed quite closely by her own son. Occasionally, Jonesy would interrupt his car noises with a horribly high-pitched cry of "you'll never catch me", which only served to make Evan even more determined to catch Jonesy. She couldn't conceal laughter as Jonesy finally seemed to slow down, only to be near tackled by Evan, who was still grasping his police car in his hand._

_Jonesy rolled onto his back, laughing as Evan climbed onto his stomach. "Oh no," he squealed in a horrible mix of the 'criminal's' voice and his, "I've been caught!"_

_Tess finally moved from where she had been watching the game unfold, lifting Evan off Jonesy's abdomen. "Okay, Evvie," she cooed, baby voice and all, "I think it's time for bed now…"_

_Still lying on the floor, trying to contain the laughter, Jonesy motioned down the hallway. "You can use my bed if you'd like," he offered, earning a smile from Tess._

_As she disappeared down the hallway to Jonesy's room, Evan's cries of "no bed, not sleepy" and "police chasey" could be heard, even from the living room. Jonesy chuckled to himself at this as he sat up, looking around the living room. Life was perfect for the first time in so long that he had forgotten what perfect could feel like._

_Tess returned to the living room several minutes later, Evan's protests still audible down the hallway. "Now look what you've done!" she told Jonesy with a laugh. "He'll never get to sleep now."_

_She offered a hand to Jonesy, who accepted it gratefully. They stood together in the centre of the living room, so close that their bodies were actually touching._

"_Evan's not like that with anyone else," she observed with a smile, "you're the only person who he really seems to trust. He doesn't have much of a man in his life."_

"_What about Josh?" Jonesy queried, smile fading in curiosity._

_Tess shrugged sadly, her own smile fading away slowly. "Josh is the most useless father on the planet," she explained, "gave him a present on his first birthday and that's about all he's ever done for him. He used to pay maintenance, but he stopped several months ago." She sighed glumly, her gaze drifting away from Jonesy. "I want him to have a good male role model, Evan," she confessed quietly, "someone to look up to in life. I want him to have a father figure."_

_Jonesy nodded at this, when a sudden thought struck him. He couldn't hide the smile as the words came out long before his commonsense and his mouth could work together to stop him. "Well," he said with a goofy, romantic smile, "we could get married."_

_Even little Evan seemed to stop crying out as soon as Jonesy finished and silence fell through the house. Tess looked at him in confusion. "What?"_

_Even though his brain was now screaming at him to stop, Jonesy knew he was too far gone to stop now. "Marry me, Tess," he told her, reaching out and taking her hand. As her confused expression intensified, he realised he'd have to go all out. He held tightly to her hand, dropping down onto his right knee, looking up to her pleadingly. "Please?"_

_For a long moment, Jonesy waited, watching Tess as fear ran through his heart. Finally, she nodded weakly. "Yes."_

_Tess' answer took some time to set in, before finally Jonesy jumped to his feet, enveloping her into his arms and screaming out in happiness. A huge smile spread across Tess' face as she let him twirl her around in the air, pressing his lips hard against her's. He couldn't believe this…she'd finally said yes._

Mark's stomach rumbled loudly, disturbing him from what were admittedly half-hearted attempts at studying for his Senior Sergeant's exam. The test was harder than he had thought it would be. He certainly had a new respect for Tom if this was what he had to go through for that rank. He glanced down to his watch, his eyes widening as he realised what the time was.

He wandered out into the muster room, only to be met with four empty desks. He headed across the room to the CI office, inviting himself inside. Amy and PJ's heads snapped up to greet him. "Have you seen Kelly or Joss?"

Amy looked over to PJ standing beside her against the window, to see him shaking his head. "I think they're off on a job or something. The world of crime doesn't stop just because the officers have."

"True," Mark mumbled in agreement, folding his arms against his chest, "either one of you want to go down and grab the lunches, then?"

The detectives shared a glance, momentarily arguing over who should go down to the pub, before Amy had a better idea. "What about Susie?" she asked with a shrug. "She could probably do with the fresh air."

Mark thought through Amy's suggestion, before nodding to himself. "That sounds like a good idea," he said as he turned to leave, "get her out of the station for a bit."

Almost as soon as Mark had left, Amy returned her curious stare to PJ. "Susie seems to be the pretty forgiving type to me," she mused, partly to herself and partly to PJ, "and Alex couldn't hold a grudge if his life depended on it. So I still don't get how they could end up hating Jonesy with the hatred they do."

PJ shrugged, letting out a heavy sigh. "I think it all happened the night before Tess and Jonesy's wedding," he explained, "that was the last that they saw of each other Susie saw him on the monitor today. They're the only two who will ever know what really went on that night…"

_Susie looked up from Mark's computer, her eyes strained from staring too long at the screen by only the light of the overhead lamp on his desk. She'd offered to stay behind at the station and finish up some report for him while he went home for his daughter's birthday dinner. In some ways, Mark had become quite like PJ in trying to make up for her lack of a social life by involving her more in work. PJ was treating her like his detective-in-waiting and Mark appeared to be giving her lessons in life as a Sergeant. She didn't really mind, it gave her something to think about other than Evan Jones and Tess Gallagher, at any rate._

_She glanced over into the CI office, where Jonesy was shuffling through some papers on Tess' desk. He'd been using the office a lot these days, almost as though it were his own. She was surprised he hadn't gone home yet to Tess, especially given that it was the night before his wedding. The wedding she'd had to twist PJ's arm that morning to find out about._

_She finally decided that it was time to talk. He couldn't marry Tess while so much was left unsaid. Susie dragged herself to her feet and approached the doorway to the CI office, leaning sideways against the doorframe. Her presence was enough to startle Jonesy to attention._

"_Suse," he mumbled, looking up at her in surprise, only to wish he'd ignored her instead. "I would've thought you'd have gone home."_

_Susie didn't respond straight away, instead shrugging as an answer. "I suppose the same could be said for you."_

_Jonesy nodded in solemn agreement, looking back to the paperwork and stuffing it away quickly. He approached her, finally stopping so that they were standing opposite each other, the closest they'd been for months._

"_I had some work to finish up," he said, his voice becoming slightly nervous. Susie folded her arms against her chest sceptically._

"_Before your honeymoon, you mean?" she asked, earning a surprised nod from Jonesy. "I managed to get PJ to tell me this morning that you and Tess are getting married tomorrow." She paused, trying to find something to say that wasn't going to come out completely wrong. "I suppose congratulations are in order, then." She knew that her voice was sounding bitter and in retrospect, wished she'd taken a different tone._

_Jonesy rolled his eyes, backing away slightly. His expression said it all. "Oh, don't force yourself, Susie," he mumbled, his voice dripping with sarcasm._

_Her eyes widened in surprise, before suddenly she found herself taken the offence. She could tell exactly where this was going. Everything and anything that they thought was about to boil over._

"_You've never liked Tess," Jonesy pointed out coldly, "ever since the moment she walked into this station, you've had it against her."_

_Susie shook her head, her eyes narrowing. "Can you blame me?" she demanded. "She knocked you back at every turn when she worked here before, yet as soon as she comes back a couple of years later, you fall all over her like some stupid lovesick puppy!"_

"_And that's not the pot calling the kettle black, is it?!" Jonesy responded, turning to Susie with resentment and anger clearly in his features. He pointed a finger at her as he approached her. "At least Tess knows what she wants! You, on the other hand, don't seem to have a bloody clue!"_

_She began shaking her head. "Have you ever known what you've wanted?!" she demanded of him as he lowered his finger. "I've always been some sort of dispensable…thing that you can just have whenever you want! Did you ever love me or was I just second-best?!"_

"_I thought that was something you were better known for!" Jonesy snapped. "How many guys do you want Susie? You've already had Brad, Ben, Alex and me. Are you going after Joss next, see if you can break a record?!"_

_Susie's temper was boiling over. She began to clench and unclench her fists angrily at her side. "At least I never dated a…a…a drug abusing prostitute who nearly got me sacked!"_

"_That is below the belt!" Jonesy shouted, his voice becoming louder._

"_No, it isn't," Susie said, her voice losing volume in place of bitterness. "You, Evan Jones, are the most self-centred, insensitive and immature bastard I have ever had the misfortune of working with."_

_Jonesy moved closer to Susie, so that their noses were just centimetres apart. "Well you, Susie Raynor," he shouted, his voice still as loud as ever, despite being right in Susie's face, "are the most uncaring, interfering bitch I have ever known!"_

_Suddenly, any conviction in Susie's face was gone, replaced by uncertainty and what was the beginning of tears. "Well," she mumbled, her voice shaky and weak, "hope you and Tess have a nice life."_

_Jonesy's expression didn't soften, however, until long after she'd brought her hand hard against his cheek and took off out of the station, sobs echoing down the corridor and back into the CI office._

Susie entered the public bar of the Imperial Hotel, humming to herself as she leant against the bar and craned her neck to see if Chris was hiding away in the office. The publican waved a hand in her direction as she attempted to finish her phone call. As she glanced around the bar, Susie suddenly caught sight of three familiar figures sitting around a nearby table. The blonde woman noticed Susie immediately and quickly brought her husband to attention. He spun in his seat, his eyes widening in horror.

"Evan Jones," Susie mumbled, gulping as she tried to retain her composure.


	31. Ep 6: Forgiven, Not Forgotten Pt5

**Part 5**

**_Lyrics in this part come from "Lift" by Shannon Noll and "Forgiven, Not Forgotten" by The Corrs._**

Chris emerged from her office, quickly becoming uneasy at the sight of Susie and Jonesy standing face-to-face for the first time since the night before Jonesy's wedding – the night she'd heard about but hadn't witnessed. Over at the table, Tess pulled little Evan into her lap and tighter into her arms, bouncing him on her knee as she watched on distractedly.

"Susie," Jonesy whispered in trepidation, looking his old colleague and lover up and down, taking in every familiar part of her. Her face was a mixture of fear and horror, obviously still remembering what had unfurled the last time they stood this close. "It's been…"

"Ages?" Susie finished for him, nodding slowly in agreement. She couldn't tear her eyes away from him, instead all she could do was try not to let her uncomfortableness show. "It has. You've missed so much."

Chris edged over to Tess as Jonesy gave a nod of affirmation and sad realisation. "I have…we have," he conceded, lowering his gaze and breaking the eye contact between them. "We were going to come back for the funeral, we really were, we just…"

"Didn't want to make a scene?" Susie interrupted, once again somehow catching his line of thought perfectly. No matter how badly the terms were on which they'd parted, they'd had a powerful connection. "You should've come," she told him quietly, "Alex and I would have been civil."

"How is Alex, anyway?" Jonesy asked, the uneasy silence becoming far more penetrable.

Susie shrugged thoughtfully. "He's doing pretty well," she replied, "he's getting a bit better at the Sergeant job. He makes a really good friend…all he's trying to do is look out for me, I suppose. He just doesn't always know what he needs to do…"

_The silence in the police station was nearly scaring Alex. It was the middle of the day, yet it was only him and Susie sitting at their desks in the muster room, half-heartedly pretending to be working on reports. Everyone else had already gone to Tess and Jonesy's wedding. Susie had declined her very late invitation and he had offered to help her out. The world of crime wouldn't stop just because two coppers were getting married._

_Susie had been unusually quiet all morning. Sure, she had been very uneasy since Tess returned, but this morning was different. There was something sad in the way she kept her head bowed, stopping every now and again to trudge off to the mess room._

_Finally, he decided to break the uncomfortable silence. "At least they won't be around for a while, huh?" he said with a forced smile. "The two little lovebirds will go off on their honeymoon and leave us all in peace."_

_Susie began shaking her head as she rose to her feet and looked away from Alex. "Can we not talk about them, please?"_

_Her voice was breaking and strained. Alex could see the tears on her cheeks. She was crying._

"_Aw, Suse," he soothed as he rose to his feet and stood behind her shoulder, "there's plenty of other guys out there…heaps!"_

"_Please, Alex," she begged him, turning to show him her tear-filled blue eyes, "please don't talk about them anymore."_

_Alex noticed the dark look in her eyes. Something inside Susie's soul had died since he'd left the station the night before. Something that had all the world to do with Jonesy. He reached out, cupping her cheek in his hand. She pulled away from him. "What happened, Suse?" he asked quietly. "Was it Jonesy?"_

"_Can't you just leave it alone?" Susie demanded, trying to escape past him, only for him to grab her wrist tightly. "I don't want to talk about him anymore."_

"_Did he say something to you?" Alex asked her, his voice becoming heavy with impatience. "What did he say, Suse? Tell me what he said to you."_

"_He didn't say anything!" Susie lied, desperately trying to escape Alex's grasp again, only to fail miserably. Her resolve was crumbling. "I'm just an uncaring, interfering bitch, anyway."_

_His eyes widened at this, but his grip didn't weaken on her wrist. He just shook his head. "Who told you that?" he asked her, earning nothing in response except for the look in Susie's eyes. He knew exactly who told her that. "Jonesy…I'll kill him…"_

_Susie looked up in horror as Alex stormed out of the station, grabbing the keys to the patrol car as he went. She called after him as the door out into the car park slammed loudly behind him. "Alex!"_

Jonesy looked around the mess room with a half-smile on his face, his gaze falling upon the man that used to be his best mate, looking at something taped onto the inside of his locker door. He leant side-on against the doorframe as the photo came into view. It was an old picture of the two of them together when they were at high school, back in the old days.

"How you doing, mate?"

Alex's head darted up quickly in surprise, only to immediately be filled with annoyance. "I'm not your mate, Jonesy," he mumbled, "not anymore. I stopped being your mate the night you said those things to Susie."

Jonesy just shook his head for a lack of anything else to do. "We both got angry and said things we didn't really mean," he said with a shrug, "I saw Susie down at the pub, she said you'd been looking out for her."

"She's a mate," Alex pointed out, shrugging as he closed his locker loudly, "I look out for my mates. She needed someone around after what you did to her."

"I didn't mean to hurt her that badly," Jonesy told Alex, his eyes beginning to shine sadly. He really hadn't meant everything he'd said to Susie. He knew she hadn't deserved to be called those things. "I thought it'd just roll off her back, you know."

Alex rounded on Jonesy, pointing a finger at his chest. "You yelled in her face, Jonesy!" he reminded him sternly. "You called her an uncaring, interfering bitch until she broke down into tears! She could never forget what you told her! You yelled it in her face so loudly that it'll stay with her for the rest of her life!"

Jonesy backed away slowly, lowering his gaze. Alex wasn't finished.

"She called you a bastard, but it was easier for you," Alex continued, "you could just run off to Melbourne with Tess and leave us to pick up the pieces. Maybe you never loved her, Jonesy, but she sure as hell cared about you. And all you ever did was stuff her around!"

"I didn't know what to do after Tess left," Jonesy confessed, his voice suddenly attaining a very different quality, something was unfamiliar to Alex. "I'd loved her for so long and suddenly, she wasn't there anymore. I had this empty part of my heart I didn't know what to do with. And then Susie came along and we were both trying to forget someone and it just felt convenient, Lex." He shook his head, his mind drifting back to those numerous times he and Susie had nearly made it. "It felt right at the time. I don't blame you for doing what you did. It hurt like hell and I hated you when you did it, but I understand now. I don't blame you anymore…"

_Alex headed for the door to the public bar of the Imperial Hotel, only to be met by the sight of one of Chris' young barmaids sitting outside, taking a long drag on a cigarette. He stood over her, arms folded against her chest. The young blonde looked up at him expectantly._

"_Leading Senior Constable Kirby?" she asked, reading his badge curiously, "what's up?"_

"_I need to speak to Evan Jones," he snapped, his voice cold and teeming with anger. "Now."_

_The barmaid tossed her cigarette butt to the ground and looked up at Alex, regarding him coolly. "You do know he's at his wedding reception, don't you?"_

"_I know and I don't care," he told her firmly, "I just need to speak to him now."_

_She rolled her eyes, mumbling something ungrateful pigs under her breath as she disappeared back into the bar. Alex remained outside, leaning against a pole, until several minutes later when Jonesy emerged from the pub, wearing a pressed suit and looking proud as could be with a gold ring on his finger._

"_Lex?" he asked in confusion. "What's going on? The barmaid made it sound like it was an emergency."_

_Alex didn't give Jonesy a chance to continue before bringing his fist hard against Jonesy's left cheek. His best mate stumbled sideways slightly, raising a hand to his face. He looked up at Alex as he lowered his hand. "Bloody hell, Alex," he mumbled, "what was that for?"_

"_That," Alex told him coldly, "is for what you said to Susie last night. And this," he continued, bringing his fist again to the side of Jonesy's face, connecting right where his first punch had, "is to let you know that our friendship is through."_

"_Friendship is through?" Jonesy asked in bemusement through a bloodied and cut lip. "I don't get it…"_

_Alex backed away, unclenching his fist. "You don't treat a mate of mine like that and think I'll stand back and let you. If you know what's good for you, you and Tess won't stick around." And with that, he turned and left, leaving the man that had once been his best mate standing alone on the veranda of the Imperial Hotel, his wedding day now well and truly soured._

Jonesy and Tess emerged into dining room, little Evan held tightly in Jonesy's arms. Chris had decided to orchestrate some sort of dinner for all of the coppers, including them. It was probably some attempt at seeing whether or not their newfound peace with Susie and Alex would last.

Their old colleagues sat around a secluded table, their conversation stopping as soon as they noticed Tess and Jonesy standing on their own in the doorway. They shared a sideways glance, looking worriedly to Susie and Alex to see how they would react. Apparently, they were reacting well.

Susie rose a hand, motioning for the small family clustered together in the doorway to join them. "Come over, guys, grab some chairs."

The pair smiled weakly as they grabbed a couple of chairs from a nearby table and joined their old colleagues. Tess and Jonesy watched on in curiosity for several minutes, before it became quite clear that the tension that had once existed between themselves and the others had somehow disappeared over that day.

It felt good to be accepted again after all that time.

_Tess looked over to Jonesy as he pulled his old white truck off to the side of the road, just in front of an old faded sign that told them that they were "Leaving Mt. Thomas". In the back seat, little Evan gave a high-pitched squeal as Puddles began to nudge him with her nose._

"_Puddles," Tess told the dog warningly, looking back over her shoulder to her son and dog on the backseat. She looked back to Jonesy beside her, eyes suddenly quite misty. "I suppose this is it, then."_

_Jonesy nodded, tightening his grip on the steering wheel. He couldn't get the thought out of his mind about leaving Mt. Thomas, the place that had become his home over the last five years. His first real station. "Yeah," he agreed dismally, unable to stop the flashing images of his life in Mt. Thomas coming to the forefront of his mind, "I guess it is."_

"_It wasn't meant to end this way, was it?" she asked him, sitting back in her seat, her once perfectly done curls now messy and tired. Sure, she was still married to the man she loved and nothing could ruin that, but now they were practically being run out of town by Alex and Susie._

"_Nah," he agreed with a shake of his head, "it wasn't." He looked over to her, forcing a smile for her sake. "Country towns, huh?"_

_Tess returned his weak attempt at a smile at looked to the long road ahead. "It's getting late," she reminded him quietly, trying to keep the conviction in her voice, "and it's a long drive to Melbourne."_

"_Hmm," Jonesy agreed, still looking bad enough for the two of them. Tess leant over, snuggling into his arms and pressing her lips against his. The feeling of her lips on his was enough to stir him back to life and bring a genuine smile to his face. "Guess it's time to get going, then," he said, squeezing her shoulders tightly as he pulled back onto the road and hit the accelerator. Their lives in Mt. Thomas hadn't ended the way they'd have liked, but they had each other, Evan and Puddles and a future in Melbourne._

_This was never meant to be the end_

_Close the book and start again_

The early morning sunlight streamed through the windscreen and car windows as Tess and Jonesy sat in the old white truck, pausing on the highway out of town to look at the old faded sign, memories rushing back to them, both good and bad. Evan sat in the back seat, playing with his new favourite toy, a brand new toy police car which he ran backwards and forwards along the seat beside him.

Tess reached over, taking Jonesy's left hand in her's. He looked down to their hands, their fingers intertwined in each other's. He knew that they were both thinking along the same lines – how much life had changed in Mt. Thomas in their absence. Mark was now in charge, Amy was back and things were just very different in general.

"We can come back to visit sometime," Tess suggested with an encouraging smile, "check up on the old crew anytime we like."

Jonesy nodded, leaning over to plant a passionate kiss on her lips. Their eyes met, their faces mirroring the same sense of satisfaction and closure. "I like the way you think, Tessy," he told her as he sat back in his seat and put his foot on the accelerator, passing the old sign and returning to the home they had created in Melbourne, but this time, not leaving a streak of shattered lives behind them.

---------------------------------------------------

Susie rolled over in bed, stirring awake slowly from a dream. It was something that she had seen so many times before, but still couldn't get used to waking up from. She had dreamt so often of Jonesy's arms around her, holding her tightly. Telling her that it had been "like at first sight" or asking "would you mind if I kissed you".

She reached over into the empty space beside her, running her hand along the creased sheets. There had been no one there beside her for so long, she'd have thought she would have gotten used to it by now, but she couldn't. She missed having someone there when she woke up; someone to snuggle closer to as she silently prayed that nothing would disturb them and force them from their early morning bliss.

No matter how happy he was with Tess and no matter how much she had forgiven him and let down the wall of hatred so they could be friends, she still loved him. She could forgive him for what had happened between them, maybe even someday she would move on with someone else, but she would never forget him. Not the man she had loved for so long, even if it had only been because it was convenient at the time.

All she could do now was try to focus on being the best copper and person she could be and hope that the rest would follow.

_A bleeding heart, torn apart, left on an icy grave_

_In their room where they once lay face to face_

_And nothing could get in the way_

_But now the memories of a man are haunting her days_

_And the craving never fades_

_She's still dreaming of a man long forgiven, but not forgotten_


	32. Ep 7: Judgement Day Pt1

**Episode 7: "Judgement Day"**

**Summary: **_Joe Kenny goes to trial for the murder of Tom Croydon, only to claim that he was hired to kill him. Amy and PJ's investigation into corrupt officers has devastating consequences when the station is held hostage and a Heeler shot._

**Part 1**

PJ looked up the footpath outside the Mt. Thomas courthouse, fixing Joe Kenny with a stare of intense hatred as two St. Davids officers lead him along and inside. Amy stood beside him, following PJ's gaze with her own. It had been nearly one and a half months since Tom Croydon was killed and the man responsible was going to trial. Normally, these things would take months to organise, but like with their investigation into Tom's murder, it appeared it had been rushed along.

The pair stood outside the courthouse, trying to remain composed in the lead-up to the trial. PJ wore his best suit – the same one he had worn at the Baxter trial, in retrospect – while Amy was wearing one of her many black suits with a skirt and heels. She left her hair out, but not one single hair was out of place. They both understood how important it was to be professional in this trial. They had to get a conviction. For Tom Croydon.

Susie pulled up in the patrol car a few metres away, jogging through the usual courthouse crowds to the detectives. She quickly brushed a few strands of blonde hair behind her ears. "Everyone sends their luck," she told them, straightening her uniform slightly. She was on court duty, something that she was actually envied for, for once.

"Luck won't come into it," PJ told her firmly, glancing back into the courthouse, watching as someone who could easily be Joe Kenny's lawyer headed inside. "We'll get a conviction because of solid police work and that Kenny is a lowlife cop killer."

"Well," Susie said, suddenly quite uncomfortable, "good luck anyway." She shot them both as bright a smile as she could manage given the recent circumstances and headed into the courthouse, adjusting her hair absentmindedly as she did so.

Amy looked up to PJ, giving him an encouraging stare. "We'll get him, PJ," she told him with a smile, "I know we will."

He smiled at her, glancing around to make sure no one was looking before planting the quickest of kisses on her cheek. "I know."

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PJ stood in the box beside the judge, trying to keep himself as professional as he could. Beside the police prosecutor – some Senior Constable from St. Davids – Amy sat, biting her bottom lip in the way she always did when she was nervous or deep in thought. Susie stood beside the big double doors at the back of the courtroom, wringing her hands in front of her stomach as she watched on. Chris had taken it upon herself to watch the trial, sitting several rows behind Amy and the police prosecutor, her eyes wide as she took in every word.

"It was the 23rd of November 2007," PJ recounted, occasionally pausing to recollect his thoughts under the stares from the others in the room, despite Amy, Chris and Susie's encouraging half-smiles. "It was approximately eight a.m. in the morning and we were concerned because Senior Sergeant Croydon had failed to arrive at work. We were concerned because it was unlike him to be late."

The police prosecutor nodded, raising to his feet briefly. "So what happened next, Senior Detective?"

PJ lowered his gaze momentarily, before looking out and meeting Amy's eyes. She was silently urging him on. "The other uniformed officers were already preoccupied with other duties and as there had been nothing worthy of CI involvement so far, I offered to go around to Senior Sergeant Croydon's house and see what had been keeping him.

"I tried knocking on the front door and ringing the doorbell, but Senior Sergeant Croydon failed to answer," PJ's voice seemed to waver slightly as he neared what they knew would be a difficult memory to recollect. "So I headed around the back. The back door doesn't lock properly and I could force the flyscreen if it became necessary. On the way around to the back door, I noticed that one of the side windows was smashed."

Once again, the police prosecutor climbed to his feet. "And what did you do at this point, Senior Detective?"

"I forced the screen door around the back," PJ explained, glancing up to the judge briefly, "I didn't want to disturb any evidence or risk injury to myself." He closed his eyes momentarily, trying to knock back the horrible sick feeling that was rising up in his stomach. He could still see that whole situation playing out as if it had been yesterday. "I found Senior Sergeant Croydon lying on his side in the living room with two bullet wounds to the chest. There was no breathing or a pulse. I attempted to resuscitate him until Constables O'Rourke and Peroni arrived."

"About how long was it between when you found Senior Sergeant Croydon's body and when Constables O'Rourke and Peroni arrived?" the police prosecutor queried, barely getting off his seat before sitting down again.

PJ thought about the question for several seconds before shrugging helplessly. "I'm not sure," he responded, glancing up to the judge to see her reaction, "I was too busy trying to resuscitate Senior Sergeant Croydon. At the time, I wasn't aware that he had already been dead for about five hours."

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The police prosecutor picked up a file, studying it quickly. "Senior Detective Fox," he began, looking up to where Amy stood in the same box that PJ had occupied just minutes before, "you had a previous posting to Mt. Thomas before Senior Sergeant Croydon was murdered, didn't you?"

She nodded at this, meeting PJ's eyes. "I did," she replied, "I left after being offered a job with Homicide in Melbourne."

"And it was with Homicide that you returned to Mt. Thomas a month and a half ago?" the police prosecutor asked, earning a nod from Amy.

"My superior informed me that Senior Sergeant Croydon had been murdered and I offered to investigate," she explained. "After I checked in at the station, Senior Detective Hasham and I went to Senior Sergeant Croydon's house where I saw crime scene photos of the body."

She cringed slightly at the use of 'the body' when describing Tom Croydon. It was bad enough to think of anyone as just a body, let alone her old Senior Sergeant. "The autopsy report showed that the bullets had come from a police issue revolver. A contact of mine had recently investigated the theft of several revolvers from the St. Kilda police station and he sent through the serial numbers and CCTV camera images from the night of the robbery. From there, Senior Detective Hasham positively identified one of the men in the images as Joseph Kenny."

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Amy set herself down beside PJ as Joe Kenny moved up to the stand where she and PJ had been. He reached over, squeezing her hand encouragingly. "You did great."

She nodded, pulling her hand away under the watchful gaze of the prosecutor. "I just presented my evidence, PJ," she reminded him quietly, "nothing more. Now Joe Kenny, this is where it'll get interesting."

PJ sighed in agreement. "Yeah, it is."

---------------------------------------------------

"Now, Mr. Kenny," Joe's lawyer began, removing his glasses from his nose in a very official fashion. He tended to wave them around in the air as he talked. "You've already admitted to being involved in the robbery of the police revolvers from the St. Kilda police station, however, I'm sure that your worship would struggle to believe the prosecution's case against you for the murder of Senior Sergeant Croydon."

PJ could feel himself taking Amy's hand at this, squeezing it tightly at his side. He didn't know what they were planning on bringing up here and he frankly didn't want to know.

"Yes, forensic evidence has placed you at the scene and has put the gun in your hands," the lawyer continued, his arm movements becoming wilder as he went on, "but I struggle to find a motive. It was Constable Patterson who had a brief relationship with your wife and Senior Detective Hasham who killed Raelene Darcy, but Senior Sergeant Croydon played little part in anything that involved your family."

Joe shuffled his weight awkwardly, turning to look PJ square in the eye, causing the detective to flinch slightly. "That's because killing that pig was never my idea in the first place." He ignored the protests from the judge to be less offensive in his language and continued, spurred on by the encouraging look on his lawyer's face. "Some pig came up to me, said he knew I'd done the robbery and wouldn't dob me in if I killed Croydon for him. Gave me a few hundred bucks to do it too. Guy was the most bent copper I'd ever seen."

The courtroom suddenly fell silent at this. The police prosecutor turned to Amy and PJ, mouthing something to them in disbelief. The pair could do nothing more than shrug and shake their heads. They'd had no idea. Amy turned to glance back to Susie, who was fixing her with a similar intense stare of confusion. Chris was watching on with horror on her face.

The judge looked over the three officers sitting at the prosecution's table, leaning forward slightly. "I gather that the prosecution was unaware of this?"

The police prosecutor nodded as he rose to his feet. "Yes, your worship," he replied, glancing back uneasily to Amy and PJ. "Senior Detectives Hasham and Fox were not aware of any of this at the time of the investigation."

"I see," the judge mumbled to herself, "I'll adjourn this case to a date to be set to give the prosecution a chance to investigate this allegation of police corruption."

---------------------------------------------------

Joe Kenny sat on the suspect's side of the table in the interview room, his lawyer seated beside him. Amy sat back at her usual chair, her gaze travelling from PJ where he was leaning against the wall beside Joe down to the two men opposite. So far, they were getting nowhere fast.

"Mr. Kenny," Amy said with an impatient roll of her eyes, "today in court you made several allegations and yet you're now refusing to elaborate on them."

He leant across the table, slowing his voice down as if he was speaking to a little child. "I…want…protection," he told them firmly, sitting back in his seat. "I'm not saying another word until I have it."

PJ braced himself on the table, leaning in so that he was nearly in Joe Kenny's face. "You don't deserve protection," he spat coldly. "First you murder a police member and now you're wasting our time."

"Don't know why I'm bothering to tell you, anyway," Joe mumbled, looking away from PJ. It was quite a change of power between them from the time years ago when he had had a gun in PJ's face. "You're probably in on it too."

Amy let out an agitated sigh, looking up to PJ briefly before turning back to Joe and his lawyer. "You have my word that we aren't involved in any corruption," she assured him, that angry passion beginning to rise within her, "now you can tell us what we want to know or you'll be back on trial for Senior Sergeant Croydon's murder by this afternoon."

Joe just looked up, feigning misunderstanding as he shrugged. "What do you want?"

"Names, Kenny!" Amy snapped, rising to her feet and leaning in to him, bracing herself on the table. "I want names!"

His lawyer looked up to Amy and PJ warningly, but neither of the detectives looked as though they would be about to back off. Joe just shook his head. "It's not worth my life."

Amy looked up to PJ, backing off slightly. The look in her eyes told him what they were going to do – a good old bluff. "Well," she said, raising her eyebrows with a forced half-smile on her face, "I guess we'll just have to send you back over to St. Davids until we can get the trial scheduled again."

"Uh-huh," PJ agreed, nodding with everything Amy said, "I have to say, the judge isn't going to like this little waste of police time. Senior Detective Fox, do you think she'll add that to the charge list?"

She nodded, her smile becoming slightly broader. "Oh, definitely," she replied with a nod, "total waste of time. I'll get Constables O'Rourke and Peroni to drive you over to the St. Davids lockup, shall I?"

Joe panicked at this, jumping up. "You can't send me over there!"

Amy stopped from where she was half-way out the door, looking back to PJ. His eyes were blank and curious. She turned her attention back to Joe Kenny. "Why not?"

"Why do you think?" he demanded hotly. "He'll know I've ratted him out! You'll get me killed!"

She paused, looking up to meet PJ's blank expression. "He's a St. Davids officer?" she asked Joe in confusion, earning an impatient nod.

"Yeah," Joe pointed out, sitting back down, "you happy now?"


	33. Ep 7: Judgement Day Pt2

**Part 2**

Amy closed the door to the interview room, leaning side-on against it as she held her clipboard close to her body. PJ just looked at her from where he was standing opposite, shrugging. "So what are we going to do now?"

She glanced back in through the window in the door, beginning to bite the inside of her mouth thoughtfully. "I think we should get ESD in here."

"ESD?" PJ demanded in disbelief, watching as Amy finally moved from her post and headed for their office. "You mean Monica Draper, don't you?"

Amy looked back to him, shaking her head in misunderstanding. "Yeah," she told him, "what's wrong with that?"

"It's just…" PJ trailed off with a shrug. "Monica Draper and I aren't exactly the best of friends."

"PJ…" Amy sighed, approaching him and kissing him quickly on the cheek. "We have to play this one exactly by the book. Not only do we now have to put a cop killer away, but a bent copper too. If we want to be guaranteed of a conviction, we need ESD involved."

He rubbed Amy's arms, holding her as close as he dared when they were standing in the middle of the station. "You know that Falcon-Price will end up being involved?"

She nodded, sighing again but this time more loudly. "Rusty," she mumbled under her breath, "he'll want to take care of it in-house, I'm sure." She paused, thinking it all through. "I've got someone I can go speak to at St. Davids," she explained, handing her clipboard to PJ as she headed out to the car park, "if you give Monica Draper a ring, I'll go and see what he can give me."

PJ watched in confusion as Amy disappeared around the corner and out towards the car park, glancing back into the interview room where Joe Kenny was sitting beside his lawyer. This had suddenly gotten a whole lot more complicated.

---------------------------------------------------

Amy invited herself into the near-empty St. Davids police station, momentarily taken by the sheer size of it. Unlike the relatively small Mt. Thomas station, this one had offices on offices. In fact, each of her colleagues could easily have an office to themselves with some left over. After several minutes of rather aimless wandering through the corridors, she finally arrived at a door marked "CI" and peered round through the open crack, causing the sole detective standing inside to jump up in surprise.

"Amy!" he gasped, looking her up and down as she stepped inside, closing the door behind her, "what are you doing here?"

She approached him, taking him in. He still wore those same boring shirts. "Garth," she began, perching herself on the corner of his desk, "I need to ask you a favour."

"Hope this isn't like your last favour," Garth mumbled, looking away as he suddenly became quite uneasy, "last time I helped you out, I ended up stuck out here in the middle of nowhere."

Amy rolled her eyes, folding her arms against her chest. "This is just so typical of you, you know," she told him in a frustrated tone, "making everything all about you. As you should very well know, Joe Kenny went to trial today for the murder of Tom Croydon."

Garth turned to face her, nodding to himself as he slowly tore his gaze away. "Yeah," he sighed, "I heard about that."

"And," she continued, leaning in closer and lowering her voice, just in case one of Garth's colleagues had made a silent return, "he's made an allegation that he was blackmailed and hired to kill him."

"Really?" he asked in disbelief, raising his eyebrows as Amy nodded. "Shit."

She glanced back to the door, which was thankfully still closed. "PJ and I just spoke to him," she explained, "he says that it was a St. Davids officer who told him to kill Tom."

Garth finally gave up on continuing with his paperwork sorting and sat down beside Amy, hanging his head as he swore once again. "But I thought everyone only had the utmost respect for him. Maybe this is Kenny's 'get out of jail' card."

She shook her head. "Nah," she replied, looking up to Garth, "I'm inclined to believe that Kenny's telling the truth. He was genuinely scared when we threatened to send him over here."

"So," Garth mused, looking away from her, "you've got a copper who's hired a criminal to kill another copper. Crap, I thought nothing ever happened out in the sticks."

"Oh," Amy said, looking up to him with a forced smile, "you'd be surprised. Anyway, I just wanted to know if anything's been going on over here that you'd be able to tell me about."

He looked to her pointedly, forcing a cheeky smile, or as close to a cheeky smile as Garth Henderson could manage anyway. "Like officers walking around with big signs on their backs saying 'I hired Joe Kenny'?"

She rolled her eyes, looking away. "Don't try to be funny, Garth," she told him impatiently, "humour doesn't suit you."

"I used to be able to make you laugh," he reminisced sadly, "you used to think I was really funny."

"Must you make everything about yourself?" Amy demanded once again, clearly losing any patience she had had with Garth. Maybe this hadn't been such a great idea after all. "I want to know if there's been any tension around here lately. Anything that could suggest someone wanting to kill Tom Croydon."

He shrugged. "Well, Rusty didn't like him," he replied half-heartedly, downtrodden after Amy's latest attempt to shoot him down in flames, "but I don't think he ever really did. I don't think they're capable of murder, Amy," he told her, looking at her pleadingly. "None of them are."

She climbed to her feet, realising that she wasn't going to get anymore out of him than what she had. "Everybody's capable of murder, Garth," she reminded him sternly, "it just depends on how much you're willing to take. Anyway, they wouldn't have had to pull the trigger themselves, it was just a matter of finding a crim that they could pay to do the job for them."

Garth watched her go, his heart sinking heavily in his chest. She was looking less and less like she was going to give him another chance every time they met.

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"Senior Detective Fox!"

Amy and PJ looked up from where they were sitting in their office, half-heartedly attempting a discussion about who's turn it was to cook dinner. They had just been about to agree to a meal at the pub when Inspector Russell Falcon-Price appeared in the muster room, storming over to them with what looked like a massive bee in his bonnet. PJ looked up to her from where she was sitting on his desk; it looked as though he had just found out about her chat with Garth.

"Sir," she gulped, trying to remain composed as she rose to her feet obligingly.

He invited himself into their office, slamming the door loudly behind them. The pair jumped slightly, as did Alex and Mark in the muster room.

"What the hell possessed you to enter my police station and speak to one of my members without permission?!" he demanded, causing Amy to shrink away slightly. She was normally good with remaining cool to authority – being respectful, yet standing her ground. Not today.

She took in a deep breath, meeting PJ's encouraging eyes fleetingly. "I decided that it would be beneficial to the case at hand if I spoke to an old friend over in St. Davids CI to see if he had any information concerning our investigation."

"A Mt. Thomas investigation," Falcon-Price mused, switching his gaze between Amy and PJ angrily, "yet you found it necessary to interrogate a St. Davids officer about it. What exactly is this case, may I ask?"

Amy shifted her weight awkwardly, straightening herself slightly. "First of all," she pointed out in what she hoped was a calm manner, "it was hardly an interrogation. I calmly asked my St. Davids contact if he had information and he complied quite willingly. And second, we are investigating allegations made by Joseph Kenny in court today that he was hired by a St. Davids police officer to kill Senior Sergeant Croydon."

PJ looked over to Amy before turning to Falcon-Price. He didn't seem at all fazed by Amy's revelation. If anything, he was quite angry. He pointed a finger at the pair accusingly. "So why the hell wasn't I informed?!" he demanded. He drew in a deep breath, calming himself slightly. "I will be taking Kenny back to St. Davids to conduct the investigation myself."

"Sir," PJ interrupted, earning a cold glare from the inspector for his troubles, "I hardly think that's appropriate…"

"I will be taking Kenny back to St. Davids," Falcon-Price repeated, this time in a more forceful and bitter voice. "And all investigations from Mt. Thomas into St. Davids is to cease immediately, am I clear?"

Amy gave a small mutter under her breath that not even PJ understood. Falcon-Price glared at her, storming over so he was nearly in her face. "I asked you if that was clear, Senior Detective."

She nodded slightly, drawing as far away from his face as best she could. "Yes, sir," she answered quietly, looking away from his face. Falcon-Price backed off, glaring at the two angrily.

"You two should learn your place," he told them firmly before disappearing towards the cells, demanding in a loud voice that they be unlocked and Joe Kenny released into his custody.

"You okay?" PJ asked, looking up to a shell-shocked Amy. She nodded slowly as she perched herself on the corner of PJ's desk again. "Now, I'm going to be making a note of that in my daybook, I'm sure you'll want to do the same."

---------------------------------------------------

PJ came over to Amy where she stood in the mess room, eyes lowered. He gently rubbed her shoulder before pulling her into his arms. She didn't react at all, her mind obviously still fixed on bigger things. He ran his fingers back through her hair, hoping that it might help to relax her. It did nothing of the sort. When Amy Fox's mind was troubled with something like this, there was little he could do to help her.

She pulled away from him, smiling up at him distractedly. "Thanks, Peej," she said, pushing hair back behind her ears, exposing the injury on her neck that she was becoming less paranoid about hiding. "I don't think we should have let Falcon-Price take Joe Kenny back to St. Davids…"

He shook his head, taking up a post beside her against the window. "Nah," he agreed regretfully, "neither do I. But we couldn't stop him."

"What if he's the one who had Tom killed?" Amy asked, looking up to PJ with her eyes shining. "We might have just handed over the only person who knows for sure who hired him to a man who could lead to his death."

PJ nodded in understanding, kissing Amy quickly on her forehead. This brought the slightest hint of a smile to her face. "We'll work it out," he assured her, "no matter who did it. And then we'll make sure that they all go away for a long, long time."

Amy nodded in agreement with PJ as a brief knock sounded at the door to the mess room and Susie peered around the door. They spun to face her, her grave expression immediately forcing the weak smiles from their faces.

"Ah, guys," she told them quietly, "I think that we've got a problem."

"Like?" PJ asked, folding his arms across his chest.

Susie shifted her weight awkwardly, pushing hair back from her eyes. "Monica Draper just arrived at the St. Davids police station to question Joe Kenny. Apparently he's been killed."

Amy's mouth dropped open as PJ looked back to her, their eyes meeting in confusion. "What do you mean 'killed'?" she asked, her heart skipping a beat in her chest as she realised that her fears had come to life.

"She just found him in the cells fifteen minutes ago," Susie replied, "he's been shot in the head."


	34. Ep 7: Judgement Day Pt3

**Part 3**

Amy and PJ's heads snapped up as Monica Draper invited herself into their office, looking as stern as ever. She held out a folder to PJ, who opened it to expose several photos of Joe Kenny lying on his back on the floor of the cells at St. David's, a bullet wound in the middle of his forehead. Amy craned her neck to get a look at the photos.

"I don't know what possessed you to let Inspector Falcon-Price take Kenny back to St. Davids," Monica explained, inviting herself to sit down on Amy's unoccupied chair. PJ opened his mouth to argue, only for Monica to not even give him a chance. "But since you have, we need to investigate this situation. I'm assuming that you have already begun to make enquiries into the alleged corruption?"

Amy nodded, picking herself up from the corner of PJ's desk. "I spoke to Senior Detective Henderson over in St. Davids," she explained, "he's not involved, trust me."

PJ looked up to her in surprise at the mention of Garth's name. Since when had he been working at St. Davids?

Monica nodded taking the files from PJ's hands. She straightened herself, looking at the pair critically. "I'll be making my own enquiries into the death of Joseph Kenny," she told them, switching her gaze between the two detectives. "Is there anyone that you were looking at for this?" she asked, her eyes suddenly softening. "Anyone at all?"

"Falcon-Price," Amy answered, her eyes becoming quite dark and distant. Monica and PJ fixed her with an intent stare, which quickly faded into understanding and agreement. "He's never liked the Boss," she explained, looking up to them as she pleaded her case, "he once delayed efforts to rescue three missing officers by refusing to answer questions. And he was very eager to take care of the corruption within St. Davids in-house in 2004…"

PJ rose an eyebrow at this, his mind drifting back. "You don't think he could have been involved in the same stuff Andrew Reid was, do you?"

She looked to him, shaking her head and shrugging hopelessly. "I don't know, PJ," she replied, "but he was extremely unhelpful and refused to help in the investigation. It was almost like he was trying to cover for Andrew."

"He was very insistent on taking Joe Kenny back to St. Davids…" PJ mused, sitting back as he shared a thoughtful glance with Amy. "And he did seem awfully pleased when he appointed Mark to Acting Senior Sergeant…"

Monica nodded as she rose to her feet. "I've got an officer from ESD coming over here," she explained as she straightened her uniform. "We'll be conducting the interviews here. I suspect that we should speak to Inspector Falcon-Price first if you two feel so strongly that he is involved."

As Monica nodded to them and disappeared off to the interview room, PJ looked over to Amy, raising an eyebrow again. "You'd think that Falcon-Price would have known better than to go knocking Joe Kenny off," he told her, "it's almost like he's admitted guilt, now."

---------------------------------------------------

Amy and PJ emerged from their office at the sound of loud protests from the back entrance. Monica Draper and a uniformed Senior Constable – presumably Monica's ESD colleague – were near dragging Inspector Falcon-Price through to the interview room, despite his calls to be released.

"You have no right to drag me away from my own station and interrogate me like this!" he told them, his eyes narrowing as he caught sight of the two detectives standing in the corridor. "I thought I told you that all investigations are to cease immediately!"

The other Mt. Thomas officers present had now come to see what the source of the commotion was. Upon noticing the struggle Falcon-Price was putting up, Alex and Joss leapt into life to help.

"Mt. Thomas investigations did stop," Monica explained as she was relieved of her struggle to restrain the inspector, "however, that was before Joseph Kenny was murdered."

Joss and Alex forcibly pushed Falcon-Price into the interview room as Monica and her ESD colleague headed inside, closing the door behind her. Even though the door, they could Falcon-Price's protests.

Mark looked over to Amy and PJ, raising an eyebrow. "I hope you two know what you're doing," he told them as he headed back to his office, "he could make your lives hell if you're wrong."

Amy shrugged, glancing up to PJ. "But he murdered our Boss if we're right."

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Monica entered the silent CI office, almost causing Amy and PJ to physically jump from their seats. She regarded them calmly as she closed the door behind her, straightening herself. "We've got enough evidence to have Inspector Falcon-Price suspended until further notice," she explained to them, meeting their blank eyes. "Senior Detective Henderson has alleged that he was the only one who could have been in the cells during the time frame when Kenny was murdered."

"So you're suspending him?" Amy asked, looking back over her shoulder to Monica before sharing a brief glance with PJ.

The inspector nodded, heading for the charge counter. "We will continue to run our investigations from the Mt. Thomas police station," she continued, opening the door out to the back entrance and disappearing from Amy and PJ's view.

Amy looked back to PJ, meeting his uncertain gaze. "So, chances are that he hired Joe Kenny to kill Tom…" She trailed off, her voice becoming weak. She began shaking her head, tears of frustration and stress coming to her eyes. "If you can't trust your colleagues, PJ, who can you trust?"

She rose to her feet and approached the window behind PJ, burying her head in her hand as she tried to maintain her composure. He turned to face her, keeping one hand fixed firmly on the surface of his desk. "Bent coppers are everywhere, Amy," he told her gently, trying to hide his own inner insecurities. Corrupt coppers tended to do that to others, leave them quite frightened and uneasy. "But you can trust me."

"I know, Peej," she whispered in reply, turning to face him. He stood up and approached her so they were standing so close that they could nearly taste each other. He reached out and gently mopped away the tears that were beginning to fall down her cheeks with the back of her hand. The touch of his hand was enough to bring hint of a smile to her face. She kissed him briefly but tenderly on the lips, for once not bothering to check if any of her colleagues were watching. Something told her that they wouldn't notice right now, anyway.

Once she'd drawn away from the kiss, PJ pulled her into his arms, smiling to himself as he kissed the top of her head before letting his fingers run through her brown hair. They both were losing track of what was going on. What was meant to have been a simple murder trial had turned into an ESD investigation into their inspector.

The tenderness of the moment disappeared almost instantly as a loud call could be heard from the charge counter, causing the pair to break apart, PJ keeping an arm wrapped around Amy's shoulders.

"You'll pay for this, detectives!" Falcon-Price called as he was led out by Monica Draper, who was giving him a stern warning. "You two ought to learn your place!"

PJ looked down to Amy, who was standing shell-shocked with his arm draped around her shoulders. He tightened his grip, pulling her to his side defensively. He soothed her as best he could, while his own gut was being gripped with an intense fear, the same sort of fear that left him in a mess whenever the women he loved were in jeopardy. Falcon-Price had already exhibited that he wouldn't hesitate to have an officer killed and it appeared that they were his next targets.

---------------------------------------------------

Alex leant over behind Susie's shoulder, causing her to look up from her paperwork in surprise. She had been awfully quiet since Jonesy and Tess had gone back to Melbourne. But at least she wasn't being as cold as she had been before.

"Suse," he began as she pushed her paperwork away expectantly. She had a feeling what Alex was going to ask. "You wouldn't mind helping me with that study again, would you?"

"Alex," she told him, turning around to face him, "you're going to be fine." Despite her attempts to assure Alex, she climbed to her feet and dragged her chair around to his desk, flopping down into it as she resigned herself to her fate. "You know this stuff."

He shook his head, thankful that Kelly and Joss had disappeared off to the mess room for something or another and that Mark, PJ and Amy were far too preoccupied with their own problems to notice what was going on out in the muster room. "No I don't," he told her weakly, "I don't even wanna be Sergeant, I don't see why you weren't promoted instead."

She rolled her eyes. "Believe me," she responded, her annoyance showing through in her voice, "I'd love to have your job right now. But it's rightfully your's. You outrank me, remember?"

"Leading Senior Constable," Alex reminded her with a weak laugh, "it's hardly a huge step up from Senior Constable. You're the one who actually knows this stuff. You're the one Mark tried to train up."

"I would love to be Acting Sergeant more than anything," Susie told him, her voice forlorn and longing. "But I want this station to keep going even more. And if that means you being Sergeant and me staying Senior Constable, then so be it."

Alex nodded, opening his mouth to respond, only for his stomach to rumble loudly, interrupting whatever was going to be said. He stood up straight, looking around the muster room. "Sounds like it's lunchtime!" he declared with a smile. "I might send Kel down to grab some food from the pub."

Susie nodded as Alex disappeared down the corridor, rubbing his rumbling stomach. The slightest hint of a smile spread across her face. Sure Alex could be immature at times, but he was going to make a good Sergeant. Some day.

---------------------------------------------------

Amy leant across her desk, grabbing the Kenny file from the far corner. She sat back, earning PJ's attention as she leafed through the folder, biting her bottom lip in that way she always did whenever her mind was on other things. Finally, she let out a heavy sigh, tossing the file back to the desk. "Why does this have to be so bloody hard?"

PJ nodded, reaching across and taking Amy's hand tightly in his. Their eyes met, forming that familiar connection that always had that power to make Amy feel safe. "Leave it to Monica Draper," he told her gently, "she's a pain in the arse, but she's good at what she does. If you need a toecutter in your corner, she's the one to have."

She looked away, nodding to herself. "I suppose."

He smiled, about to respond when suddenly the door from the back entrance flew open behind Amy and a familiar figure knocked her to the ground with what appeared to be a plank of wood. Amy was thrown off her chair, landing sideways on the floor painfully. Her attacker knelt down beside her, quickly taking her gun from her belt as she slowly pushed her torso up. PJ barely had a chance to raise to his feet in concern, let alone draw his gun, before the figure had Amy's gun pointed squarely on him.

"No false moves, Hasham," Falcon-Price said as Amy managed to claw her way up into a half-standing position, blood trickling from a small gash to the side of her head, her eyes filling with intense panic and fear at the sight of a gun trained on PJ. "We'll see how you like it being put back in your place."


	35. Ep 7: Judgement Day Pt4

**Part 4**

_**Lyrics in this part from "Fly To The Angels" by Slaughter.**_

The sounds of scuffle in the CI office drew the attention of the uniforms, each of their hearts skipping a beat in their chest at the sight of Falcon-Price pointing a gun at PJ, an injured Amy struggling to her feet nearby. Alex glanced over to Susie briefly, his whole body giving a sickening lurch at the idea that she could be hurt. He wanted to protect her.

He lunged for the radio, calling on the one person who could get help right now. "Kel, can you hear me?"

At the Imperial Hotel, Kelly was disturbed from her conversation with Chris by the sound of Alex's voice coming from the radio on her hip. He wasn't using protocol. She grabbed it, rolling her eyes at Chris. "Yeah, I can hear you, what's up?"

"Falcon-Price," he told her quickly, "he's got a gun…" Alex was interrupted by the sudden presence of cold metal at his left temple, his whole body freezing like ice.

Falcon-Price pushed Alex away from the radio, causing him to land roughly on the floor. Frightened, yet still determined to protect Susie, he climbed to shaky feet and scampered across the muster room to her, pushing her behind his back protectively. "No one calls for help," Falcon-Price told the whole station firmly, "or I start shooting."

As soon as Falcon-Price had headed out into the muster room to point his gun at Alex, PJ dashed across to Amy, grabbing her shoulders as he helped her to her feet. Blood trickled from the gash on the side of her head, but she didn't appear to be too badly hurt.

"Are you okay?" he asked her softly, his voice carrying that same concern that he always showered Amy with. He rose his fingers to Amy's injury, pulling them away to see her scarlet blood on his fingertips. He hated seeing her hurt.

"Yeah, yeah," Amy assured weakly, letting PJ keep his arms around her defensively. "I'm fine." She looked away from PJ and out into the muster room, where Alex had just pushed Susie behind his back in what could only be called an attempt to protect her. Joss was still sitting at his desk, frozen in fear, while Mark edged himself out into the room under orders from their inspector.

Falcon-Price waved the gun in the direction of the CI office, motioning for Amy and PJ to join their colleagues in the muster room. "Get out here!" he demanded. PJ and Amy headed out to join their colleagues in the muster room, PJ gently motioning for Amy to sit down. She didn't look too good. He sat down beside, her, keeping her enveloped in his arms and held close to his heart.

Mark looked over at his younger charges, silently asking them with his eyes if they were holding up. His eyes lingered on Amy's head injury, before he turned to Falcon-Price. "Sir," he began, shaking his head, "I don't understand…"

"I have tried to remain patient with this station," Falcon-Price responded, turning his gun to Mark, "but Tom bloody Croydon had more staying power than I was told. I was promised that Mt. Thomas would be mine and I've waited and waited and now I'm tired of it." He looked over to Amy and PJ, letting his gun focus on the pair. PJ tightened his grip on Amy out of instinct. "It's time you all learnt your place."

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Kelly lowered the radio from her mouth as Alex's final words came through. Falcon-Price was at the station and he had a gun. And by the panic in Alex's voice, the situation wasn't good. Chris fixed her with an intent stare of curiosity. "What's going on?" the publican asked.

Sudden distress came across Kelly's face as a horrible thought struck her. Joss was in the police station. All of her colleagues and the man she loved were still at the police station, possibly being held to siege by a corrupt police officer who had already demonstrated that he was capable of having someone killed. She returned her radio to her belt, her eyes blank and beginning to fill with tears of disbelief. Not Joss…

"Kel?" Chris asked, coming around to Kelly's side of the bar. She reached out, pulling the young blonde into her arms, holding her head close to her heart. "They'll get out," she promised softly, "we'll get help and they'll get out of there alive, I'm sure of it."

Kelly nodded slowly, her body still struggling to process anything. Sure, they had faced several sieges recently, from Susie's brother at the hospital to the drug supplier in room seven of the Imperial, but this was different. This was so much closer to home. It was so close to Tom's death, she couldn't lose Joss as well.

---------------------------------------------------

Mark just shook his head, causing Falcon-Price to round on him with Amy's weapon. "Nothing is so bad that it's worth killing for," he pointed out in the voice he had reserved for these situations. He glanced over to his colleagues, once again checking on how they were going. PJ kept his arms around Amy, more as a comforter for himself than for her and Alex kept Susie behind his back, his hand tight around her's. Joss remained at his desk, constantly swapping his gaze between Falcon-Price and the latest target.

Falcon-Price sighed as his mind drifted back. "When I first went out to St. Davids," he explained, "they told me that Sergeant Croydon was likely to be retiring soon. He'd just had a heart attack. They said that once he'd retired, that Mt. Thomas and St. Davids would be merged into one big station that I'd have complete control of."

PJ narrowed his eyes and Mark looked to him with raised eyebrows. PJ was the only one who had been working in Mt. Thomas when Falcon-Price had first taken up the position; he was the only one who had memories of him from before late 2003.

"And Croydon was nice enough, at first," Falcon-Price continued, sitting himself down on Kelly's desk, his more relaxed attitude still not enough assurance that retrieving their weapons would be safe. "He was a good officer, he knew what he was doing in the job. Having him on-side was always a good thing."

"So when did you decide that you wanted him killed?" Mark asked, his voice dripping with disbelief. For so many years, he had considered Falcon-Price to be a good man. He'd thought that he'd had to interests of Mt. Thomas at heart. But all the time, it had just been part of the plan. "And why did you station me here to take over if your intentions were to take over the station?"

"Jacobs," Falcon-Price said, rounding on him with his weapon, "if there was anyone who could get Tom Croydon to retire, it was you. The old dinosaur had more staying power than I'd thought he would."

PJ and Alex slowly tightened their grips on the women they were protecting, while Joss' fear was only disturbed by the relief that Kelly wasn't involved in this at all, that she had volunteered to go down to grab the lunches. She'd be safe.

"There was a promotion on offer in Melbourne," Falcon-Price finished, aiming his gun at each of the frightened officers around him in turn, "but I was turned down because I'd been stuck out here for so long. This job has ruined my life," he told them firmly, pointing his gun at Amy and PJ, "my wife's walked out, I can't see my kids anymore and now I'm stuck in this dead-end job in a near dead-end town!"

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Monica barked orders over to the backup she had called in from St. Davids as she pulled on a bullet-proof vest. Kelly watched from the footpath where she stood with Chris, both suddenly feeling like outsiders to the whole situation. Their friends were in there and in Kelly's case, lover.

She broke away from Chris and strode over to Monica, grabbing for the spare vest in the back of a marked police car from St. Davids. The inspector grabbed her hand, however, gently pushing her away. "Leave this to us, Constable," she explained as she drew her weapon, "you'll only be putting yourself and them in greater danger."

"But you don't understand!" Kelly cried, her tears becoming suddenly stronger. "My best friends are in there!"

Monica paused, turning to give Kelly's shoulder a supportive squeeze. "I understand, Kelly," she said, her eyes sympathetic, "but you can't be involved in this. The best thing you can do is stay back from the situation, keep onlookers away."

Kelly began shaking her head. "But, Inspector!" Her cries were ignored by Monica, however, as she took a megaphone from the hands of one of the uniformed officers nearby, calling out to the station.

"Inspector!" she called, "this is Inspector Monica Draper! Let the Mt. Thomas police officers go and we can talk about this!"

Inside the station, Falcon-Price turned to Alex, approaching him so that the gun was just centimetres away from his face. "You called for help, didn't you?"

"Leave him alone!" PJ called from where he sat against the wall between the muster room and CI office, tightening his grip on Amy. Falcon-Price turned to him, approaching the pair as he pointed the gun in their direction. "It's not them you've got something against. Let them go."

Falcon-Price continued to draw closer, his aim becoming more steady. PJ could feel his heart racing unpleasantly in his chest. This was it. He pulled Amy closer to himself, and the others instantly knew. If they were going, it was going to be together. Amy let PJ wrap his arms around her protectively so that he was nearly sheltering her from Falcon-Price completely. He was willing to take a bullet to save her, if it came to that.

"You two couldn't leave it well enough alone, could you?" Falcon-Price asked, bearing down upon them. PJ hugged Amy tighter to his chest, glancing back over to shoulder to fix the inspector with an expression of utter hatred. Amy refused to let PJ bury her head in his shoulder, instead choosing to look up at the man standing over them in fear. "I warned you…"

He cocked his gun, aiming and preparing to fire. Amy finally let PJ pushed her head back down into his shoulder. They both waited, pure terror consuming them as Falcon-Price prepared to shoot, before a loud cry startled them back to earth.

"No!" Susie screamed, breaking out from behind Alex. She couldn't just stand by and let the two people who had become quite like a big brother and sister by killed by the man who had commissioned the murder of their father figure. Falcon-Price turned away from Amy and PJ, sparing them, but she paid dearly for her attempts to save them. Falcon-Price fired his weapon, the bullet hitting Susie in the stomach, causing her to stumble back in pain and shock.

Alex's eyes widened as Susie turned to face him, her legs giving way beneath her as she crumpled forward into his arms, blood pouring profusely from the bullet wound in her abdomen. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tightly to his chest, tears beginning to fill his eyes and run down his cheeks.

Susie could barely keep her eyes open. She could barely move at all. She could only let Alex hold her close, falling to his knees under her weight. He pressed her body close to his, her legs lying across his knees as his warm salty tears began to drip onto her neck and shoulder. She could feel herself becoming light-headed, her vision blurring as her body became limp in Alex's arms. The world around her was fading to black, the pain in her stomach becoming more and more distant. Just as she felt herself drift away from Mt. Thomas and this world forever, she could hear Alex's strained and distressed voice calling out to her.

'_Cause now you've got to fly high_

_Fly to the angels_

_Heaven awaits your heart_

_And flowers bloom in your name_

_You've got to fly high_

_Fly to the angels_

_All the stars in the night_

_Shine in your name_

"Susie!" Alex sobbed desperately as her eyes closed slowly and her body became limp and lifeless. The blood continued to pour from her bullet wound, soaking the front of Alex's shirt and causing it to stick to his skin. He hugged her more tightly than before, beginning to rock himself backwards and forwards on his knees. He looked over Susie's face, her expression devoid of life or emotion. She was gone, Susie was really gone. He looked up to Falcon-Price, his eyes shining with tears of utmost betrayal. A man they were meant to be able to trust had just fired upon and killed one of them, Susie.

The others watched on, each one fixing Falcon-Price with a similar expression of horror and betrayal. PJ didn't relinquish his grip on Amy, instead holding her to his chest tighter, while Joss sat back in his chair, closing his eyes tightly in an attempt to pretend that this hadn't just happened. Mark edged closer to the inspector where he stood over Amy and PJ, gun still aimed at the spot where Susie had stood. The inspector's grip was weak and his eyes widened in horror. It had been one thing to hire Joe Kenny to kill Tom Croydon – all he had to do was hand over the money and not think about what going to happen to Tom. It was a total other to physically pull the trigger on a young woman, shooting her down in her prime.

"Sir," Mark said, resenting the use of the word towards the man who had just gunned down one of his colleagues. "Give me the gun."

Falcon-Price lowered the gun slowly, his hands beginning to shake as Mark snatched Amy's weapon from his hands, backing away and nodding to Joss as a silent cue to make the arrest. The constable slowly dragged himself to shaking feet, each movement slow and uncertain as he retrieved his handcuffs from his belt and slammed them over Falcon-Price's wrists, not bothering to give the usual spiel.

As he led the inspector to the cells under Mark's instruction, he couldn't help but look back to Alex as he cradled Susie's body to his heart, sobbing loudly. It was enough to break his heart. Susie had become so much like a big sister that it wasn't funny. And now she was gone.

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The sound of a gunshot within the station sent stabs of fear through Kelly's heart, snatching whatever precious little composure she had left. She watched as the St. Davids officers leapt into life under the direction of Monica Draper, storming into the building with guns drawn, shouting out the usual warnings.

Despite Chris' protests from beside her, Kelly drew her weapon, holding it out in front of her as she raced inside, desperation to be near Joss clouding any sense of judgement and logic she had left. She followed the other officers through the reception area and into the muster room, where it appeared that everything was over. Monica had approached Amy and PJ and was checking them over, sitting Amy down on a seat in the CI office as she motioned back to another officer to call for an ambulance. She didn't look too badly injured, but she'd obviously hit her head on something or another.

She didn't even notice Alex kneeling on the floor, cuddling Susie to him. Mark and Joss returned from the cells, both of them looking very shell-shocked and their expressions blank. She quickly holstered her weapon and raced over to Joss, throwing her arms around his neck as she held him close. It was several moments before his brain finally processed enough for him to wrap his arms around her waist, holding her as tears began to fill his eyes.

"Susie," he whispered, his voice breaking with tears. Kelly pulled away from him enough to look over and see Alex, kneeling in a puddle of Susie's blood, clutching her lifeless body to his chest.

Kelly's eyes filled with tears of grief as she threw herself onto Joss, sobbing as she became a dead weight in his arms. It was reminiscent of when they'd found her best friend's body, in memory. Joss struggled to hold her upright as she cried, burying her head in his shoulder and chest. "Susie!" she wailed, her voice nearly screaming. "Susie!"

Alex just held Susie closer to him, closing his eyes tightly as he continued to rock backwards and forwards gently. He wasn't aware of much going on around him. Kelly was screaming in Joss' arms and there was other hushed conversation going on, but no one approached him or even dared to speak to him.

He could only sob in Susie's blonde hair, taking in what was left of her familiar scent now that the blood had well and truly left them soaked. She had been his best friend since Jonesy left. She had given him the encouragement he needed in studying for his exams.

He wanted to scream or just say something. Anything, just to make everything better again and bring Susie back to him. Because, not matter how bad things had gotten between them, he couldn't stop caring about her. There was so much left unsaid that he just wanted to scream out at the top of his lungs.

But she was gone now. Susie wouldn't hear his screams.


	36. Ep 7: Judgement Day Pt5

**Part 5**

**_Lyrics in this part come from "Hold Me Tight" by Missy Higgins, "If I Could Turn Back Time" by Cher, "Untitled" by Simple Plan, "Light Surrounding You" by Evermore and "One Sweet Day" by Mariah Carey and Boyz 2 Men._**

Sophie gently and silently tended to the gash on Amy's forehead, speaking only once during the whole time to comment that her injury 'wasn't deep' and that she would make a 'full recovery'. Even if she had been talkative, Amy had a feeling that no one would be talking, anyway. PJ was sitting beside her on the hospital gurney, his head low.

"If either of you needs to talk at all," Sophie explained as she gently taped a dressing over Amy's injury and proceeded to clean up the hospital equipment on a table nearby, "just let me know, okay?" She paused, her mind suddenly travelling to someone who would be handling this worse than themselves. "How's Alex?"

Amy shrugged, speaking for the first time since Susie's death. "He was still holding her when the ambulance came," her voice suddenly became quite weak as she remembered the sight of Alex cradling Susie's limp body in his arms.

Sophie nodded, looking the two detectives over before excusing herself, keeping her head lowered. As soon as the dark curtains were drawn, PJ looked over to Amy, his eyes red from crying. Their eyes met, and it became clear that they were both being tortured with the same depressing thoughts. Had Susie not cried out when Falcon-Price was threatening to shoot them, then she'd probably still be alive right now and they'd be the ones lying in the morgue, if not seriously injured. She had saved their lives and, in the process, lost her own.

"It just isn't fair, is it?" Amy asked quietly, looking to PJ with a pleading look in her eyes. He knew instantly what it was she wanted. He reached out, pulling her into his arms, holding her tightly as he rocked her side-to-side in his arms.

"It isn't," he agreed, closing his eyes to try to stem the flow of tears. The real grief hadn't set in yet, he knew that. This was the shock and disbelief stage. The devastation would set in later. He ran his fingers back through Amy's hair, enveloping her tightly in his arms. He was relieved that they had both survived this, yes, but it was hard to feel grateful when one of them hadn't been so lucky.

As Amy began to quietly sob into his shoulder, he couldn't help but feel resentful and angry, the same sort of frustration that had plagued him so many times before when someone he cared for was taken from this world. When Susie's brother had held Amy hostage, he had tried to remain hopeful that Tom would continue to look out for them as he always had and bring her home safe. He hadn't done that this time.

As much as he loved Amy with all his heart, he couldn't help but feel a little alone. He and Susie had shared something in having worked at the old station, a connection that couldn't be broken. They had memories of a different era, a different time. A bond that had surpassed colleagues and had become like a big brother/little sister kind of relationship.

He tightened his grip on Amy, whispering weak assurances under his breath. They were going to need each other more than ever, now.

_Hold me tight_

_Because I'm losing all the energy to fight_

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Mark lifted his head from his desk as Monica Draper invited herself inside, closing the door quietly behind her. She fixed with a saddened expression, sympathetic yet detached at the same time. "I'm so sorry, Mark," she told him with a dismal shrug. "So soon after Tom…"

Mark nodded, his eyes filled with hopeless tears. No one had expected this to be the ultimate outcome of Joe Kenny's trial. They had come to work that morning, anticipating that Tom's killer would be put behind bars and that they would be able to rest easy again with the knowledge that justice had been served. But instead, they were in mourning again, this time over Susie Raynor.

"What's going to happen to him now?" Mark asked, looking up to Monica, his eyes tired and his resolve weakened to breaking point. He hadn't really mourned Tom – they'd never really been close enough for there to be anything to mourn. But Susie had been almost like his little protégé at times. She had had all the makings of a good Sergeant. But she was never going to be able to take on that role now, Falcon-Price had made sure of that.

"He's been charged," Monica explained, Mark's obvious grief beginning to rub off. She took a seat on the other side of his desk, leaning across. "Conspiracy to murder, hinder police investigation, affray, assault police, theft of a weapon, murder…" She trailed off, reaching over to rub Mark's arm sympathetically. "Sometimes the book needs to be used for throwing. Good and hard."

Mark nodded again, pulling his arm away from Monica's sympathetic grip. "She had her whole life ahead of her," he said, his voice becoming weak and strained, "she was thirty-one. She should have had the world at her feet. Instead, she's lying on a slab at the morgue."

Monica nodded, climbing to her feet as she pushed a strand of hair from her face. "How is Acting Sergeant Kirby handling the situation?"

"I don't know," Mark answered with a shrug, his shoulders hunched as he lowered his gaze again to his desk, "I wouldn't know what to say to him, anyway. He and Susie were very close."

"I'm taking Falcon-Price back to Melbourne," Monica declared, opening the door out to the muster room as she prepared to leave, "we'll deal with him there. A new district inspector will be appointed within the next couple of weeks. Look after your team, Mark," she told him as she disappeared out into the muster room and out towards the cells, "your team needs you now more than ever."

Mark nodded as Monica left, letting his head sink forward again until his forehead was resting on his desk. The team hadn't coped well with losing Tom – the wounds that that had left were still raw. Losing Susie on top of that was only going to make life so much harder. He wished he could find some way to turn back time and stop Falcon-Price from shooting Susie. And while he was at it, save Tom from Joe Kenny. Then everything would be back to normal.

_If I could turn back time_

_If I could find a way_

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Alex looked around the mess room, his eyes bleak and his cheeks stained with tears of grief. Susie's blood had dried down the front of his shirt and pants, causing them to cling to his frame uncomfortably. They'd taken her body away just a few minutes ago, leaving him completely lost. She was really gone. After everything they had been through together as best friends and, at one point, lovers, she was gone. She'd bled to death in her arms after being shot trying to protect Amy and PJ.

He opened the door to his locker and dug through the spare clothes and uniforms that had accumulated over time to expose an old picture – Tom's birthday drinks from 2006. He held it in his hands, his gaze drifting to Susie's bright and bubbly face. The photo was taken not long before Tess had returned to town and yet Susie seemed awfully comfortable with him and Jonesy. He didn't know why.

Moments seemed to flash before his eyes, memories of the good times they'd had. The night that they were keeping an eye on that new mother and her student and he'd tried to win her heart with a sob story. He had never wanted to back off Susie when he had, but he hadn't been able to ignore what was obviously something between Susie and Jonesy, no matter how much they assured him that they were only friends.

His heart screamed out in pain as he leant back against the locker and slowly slid until he was sitting on the floor in the same place where he and Susie had sat a week ago, both trying to find the courage to face Tess and Jonesy. He pulled his knees up to his chest, burying his face into his blood soaked pants. He just wanted her back with him so that he could let her know just how much she had come to mean to him. He just wanted his Susie back.

_I've made my mistakes_

_Got nowhere to run_

_The night goes on_

_As I'm fading away_

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Kelly closed the door to her room at the Imperial Hotel quietly, crossing the room to where Joss sat on the edge of her bed, head down and his expression serious in a way that she had never seen before. She offered a glass of beer to him, earning a weak "thank you" in response.

"I'm really glad you got out of there," she told him weakly, her tears still fresh on her cheeks. As she had when she had found her best friend's body all those years ago, she had cried herself to the point where the tears where silent instead of distressed wailing sobs.

Joss nodded, obviously trying to fight back tears of his own. "I'm just glad you weren't there," he told her with the weakest of smiles, "he was insane, Kel. He was going to kill Amy and PJ…he killed Susie…"

Kelly reached over, gently brushing the back of her hand against his cheek. Silent tears were beginning to roll down his cheeks, running over Kelly's hand and fingers.

"I didn't think that being shot would be like that," he confessed quietly, his voice slowly breaking up into great sobs, "that's no way to die. She didn't deserve to die like that!"

"Oh, Joss," Kelly whispered, wrapping her arms around him and holding his head side-on to her chest, rocking him gently as he listened to the steady beat of her heart. She closed her eyes tightly, resting her chin on top of Joss' head, her tears beginning to flow anew. She couldn't think of anything else to say right now. They'd been in the job for three and a half years and they'd never seen anything like that before. They had never been witness to a good friend and colleague bleeding to death before their eyes.

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Mark met Amy and PJ at the doorway to the muster room, taking special care to step around the large patch of dried blood on the floor, the place where Susie had taken her final breaths. Amy's eyes seemed to widen as she looked over the blood on the floor, wrapping her arms tighter around PJ's arm as she moved closer to him. The three just stood there, a solemn silence hanging in what would usually be such a different atmosphere. None of them would forget what had happened here today, none of them could ever forget.

"How's Alex?" PJ asked quietly as Amy's grip on him tightened, her mind obviously running with thoughts of just how close they'd all come.

"I think he's in the mess room," Mark replied in a voice that was barely more than a croaky whisper, "he just went there as soon as they'd taken the body away." He cringed at the use of 'the body' to describe Susie. It didn't seem right at all when less than an hour ago, she was a living, breathing person. Their colleague and friend. "Someone needs to talk to him."

PJ nodded, glancing down to Amy on his arm. She met his blue eyes, her's shining as it mirrored a similar expression of sadness. He paused. "I might go have a word with him, if that's alright."

Amy and Mark nodded in reply as she relinquished her grip on PJ's arm. They watched him go, head lowered as he headed slowly down the corridor to the mess room. They both knew that if there was anyone who could sympathise with Alex right now, it was him.

---------------------------------------------------

Alex looked up at the sound of the mess room door opening, only to see PJ inviting himself inside and closing the door behind him. He leant back against it, surveying the Acting Sergeant sympathetically. "How are you feeling?" he asked, automatically kicking himself for saying something so stupid. He should have known better than anyone how Alex was feeling right now.

"Like someone's just grabbed hold of my heart and ripped it out of my chest," Alex replied, lowering his gaze dismally. "What do you want, anyway?"

PJ nodded in understanding as he approached Alex, sitting down beside him with his legs outstretched. "I figured you'd need someone to talk to," he explained softly, "I've been where you are now. I know how it feels to have someone you care about to die in your arms." His own eyes began to shine in painful remembrance of the night Maggie had died, passing on while he cradled her in his arms, promising her that they'd get married, pressing his lips against her's in goodbye. "Tom told me something after Maggie died," PJ continued, letting his head hang back against the locker behind him, "you just keep getting up and putting one foot in front of the other until one day you smile. And he was right. You'll do that too, Alex, in time."

'_Cause I'd been there before_

_And I've seen it all_

_And I believe in you_

Alex laughed bitterly at this, looking away from PJ's encouraging eyes. He'd heard about Maggie Doyle before – Jonesy had once told him about the bombing and the reason why PJ had broken up with his fiancé just days before. "Really?" he asked in disbelief. "It sounds like a load of crap to me."

"Sounded like a load of crap to me at the time, too," PJ pointed out, narrowing his eyes as he regraded Alex in understanding and sympathy. "Suse was important to you. You've got every right to be angry and upset. She was one of your best friends."

Alex looked over to PJ, shaking his head as a fresh wave of tears came to his eyes. "You don't understand, PJ!" he snapped, desperately trying to hold back the sobs. "You just don't bloody understand!"

"I think I do," PJ responded quietly, reaching over to give Alex's shoulder an encouraging squeeze. "I've been this job long enough and have known Susie long enough to know when something's going on. You loved her, didn't you?"

The officer beside him went to disagree, preparing to shake his head and deny PJ's words, but instead found that his will to fight was all but gone. "I thought that I could live without her," he confessed in a voice that PJ could scarcely even hear, "as long as she was here, working beside me, I'd be alright. Even if she was with Jonesy, she'd still be here. She'd still be okay. Every time I saw her cry, I just felt like I was dying inside." He pounded the area of his chest near his heart as his voice threatened to once again degenerate into sobs. "I just wanted her to be happy, even if it wasn't with me."

PJ nodded, changing positions so that he was now kneeling on the floor. He continued to fix Alex with an intent stare, urging him to continue, no matter how painful.

"I should've said something," Alex finished in between sobs, "I always took for granted that she'd be there! I should've told her I loved her!'

"Oh, Alex," PJ said in comfort as he reached over, pulling the obviously distressed Alex into his arms. Alex didn't seem quite comfortable though – not that PJ blamed him – but didn't pull away. It was obvious that all of Alex's strength had left when Susie did. He was missing his companion, friend and one-time lover.

Alex pulled away finally, struggling to his feet. He looked over himself, forcing a smile to PJ that the detective knew was only for his sake. "Better get cleaned up, hey?" he said as he turned and disappeared for the bathroom, closing his eyes as he walked away.

He knew that PJ was only trying his best, but he just wasn't ready to hear the whole 'one foot in front of the other' talks that he was going to be inundated with over the next few weeks, no matter how true PJ said they were. He hadn't even come to grips with the fact that once he eventually went home, Susie wouldn't be there with him. The fact that she was gone and he hadn't been able to do a damn thing about it. Not one damn thing.

He stopped in front of the mirror in the men's bathroom, looking at his reflection in the mirror. Nothing seemed quite real at the moment. It felt as if at any time, he'd wake up and find that it had all been some sort of awful dream and it'd be all over. Susie would be in the next room and all would be back to normal. But it wasn't and it never would be again.

Maybe somewhere, out there, there was another woman like Susie who he would be able to love, but right now he didn't care about a single one of them. He just wanted his Susie. He wanted her back at his side.

_Darling, I never showed you_

_Assumed you'd always be there_

_I took your presence for granted_

_But I always cared_

_I miss the love we shared_


	37. Ep 8: God's Gift To Women Pt1

**Episode 8: "God's Gift To Women"**

**Summary: **_New Senior Constable Kari Izumi arrives in Mt. Thomas to replace Susie, only to receive a less than welcoming reception from her new Acting Sergeant Alex Kirby. Amy and Kari's fundamental differences in policing techniques are highlighted when they investigate a rape._

**Part 1**

The Mt. Thomas police officers dragged themselves through the back entrance of the station, each one silent and uneasy. That morning had just proven to be one of the worst mornings that they had ever endured. The group had just returned from Susie Raynor's funeral; the second police funeral in less than two months.

Amy and PJ headed for their office, the uncertain silence still hovering in the air. Amy slipped her black jacket off her shoulders and hung it over the back of her chair while PJ undid his tie and threw it down so that it landed on top of a pile of paperwork on his desk. Amy dragged herself to the window out into the muster room, where she could see her colleagues each slowly trying to tell themselves that it was time to return to some semblance of normal. Mark was busy in his office, doing whatever it was that he managed to preoccupy himself with everyday while Kelly and Joss returned to their desks, both silent, speaking only when absolutely necessary.

Alex was the saddest sight of all, sitting at his desk with his head buried in his hands. The poor thing wasn't dealing with Susie's death well at all. Amy suspected that he shouldn't even be working. PJ drew up beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close as he ran his lips down her cheekbone and along her neck. A small smile spread across her face at this, immediately making her feel somewhat guilty.

"PJ," she warned him softly as he continued with his show of affection, "someone's going to see…"

He pulled away briefly, disappointed but understanding at the same time. He stole a brief kiss on her cheek before returning to his desk, flopping back into his chair and closing his eyes. "Well, this is a great start to the New Year," PJ lamented, his words causing Amy to turn away from the muster room to face him. "Just when we thought nothing else could possibly go wrong…" He trailed off, looking up to Amy with pleading eyes.

She approached him, pulling him to his feet gently and pressing her lips softly against his. Their eyes closed slowly as their own unique electricity pulsed through them, sending their hearts racing. They both needed the reassurance that the other was there, that somehow everything might just turn out alright.

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Alex reached out to a photograph sitting on his desk, turning it over in his hands. Tess and Jonesy had taken photos at the group dinner Chris had organised over a week ago and had spent down some copies a few days ago. It felt wrong that just a few days ago, Susie was still alive and still working beside him, lifting him up in that way she always could.

The place she once occupied now felt like a hollow void. Her parents had already come to collect her belongings, although they had left some of her things at the flat that Alex had once shared with her. They sat, cluttering her bedroom, forming a harsh reminder for him whenever he passed by the door that she was never going to be around again.

He ran a thumb gently along Susie's cheek, the tears he'd thought he'd managed to exhaust at the funeral reappearing in his eyes. He missed her more than he'd ever thought he would. Life at the station just wasn't the same with her around. Things were quieter and everyone just liked to keep to themselves. Everyone was certainly being more helpful than normal, but it wasn't helping. He hadn't spoken to Amy or PJ since the day Susie died. She'd been killed trying to save their lives and he had no idea what to say. And, although no one acknowledged it, they all knew that Susie's replacement would be arriving at any time.

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The buzzer sounded in the reception area, causing several of them to jump from their seats. Amy, PJ and Mark looked out from their offices into the muster room as the silence within the station suddenly became far more awkward than before. Alex dragged himself to his feet obligingly, mumbling something under his breath about "getting it". The officers shared a worried glance between them as Alex disappeared out into the muster room, closing the door slowly behind him.

A woman – perhaps twenty-eight or twenty-nine – stood before him, a long black leather jacket pulled around what was clearly a Victoria Police uniform. Her long, straight dark hair was swept back into a high ponytail, with thick strands of hair hanging down either side of her head, cradling her face. She was clearly of Asian descent with narrow dark eyes that shone back at him and a relatively small and slender frame.

He looked her up and down, regarding her critically. She shot him a bright and beaming smile, friendly and kind. She reached out over the counter as she adjusted an old red backpack over her shoulder and let her smile broaden, becoming somewhat more relaxed. "I'm your new Senior Constable," she declared, withdrawing her hand slowly as she realised that he wasn't going to be shaking it. "Hikari Izumi," she finished, her voice suddenly losing that bright quality it had had in abundance just seconds before.

She shifted her jacket, regarding him as her face fell. Well, this certainly wasn't the light-spirited country police station she had been promised if the man standing before her was anything to go by. "And you're my new Sergeant, I see," she added, finally stirring Alex from his silence. Hikari spoke without accent and seemed quite nice, even if she was just a little overbearing for him at the moment.

"Acting Sergeant," Alex corrected glumly, remembering Susie's constant reminders of that fact. He couldn't even say his own rank without thinking of her. "You'd better come through."

Hikari shrugged as Alex slowly opened the swing-top counter, indicating back into the muster room. She smiled at him with uneasiness in her eyes as she entered, the gathering of officers before her freezing at her appearance. She edged away from the doorway so Alex could enter beside her, motioning over the group dismally before trudging off, perhaps to the mess room.

Mark watched as Alex went worriedly, before deciding to assume his role as leader. "Well," Mark said, "you'd be our new Senior Constable, I suppose."

"Yeah," she replied, staring distractedly down the corridor that Alex had just disappeared down, "I am." She suddenly seemed to perk up, extending her casual and friendly hand to Mark. "Senior Constable Hikari Izumi…but you can call me Kari."

Mark nodded taking Kari's hand and shaking it, a little bemused at the lack of an accent he had been anticipating. He motioned back to the officers over his shoulder, pointing to each in turn. "I'm Acting Senior Sergeant Mark Jacobs," he introduced, "and these are your new colleagues, Senior Detectives Amy Fox and PJ Hasham and Constables Kelly O'Rourke and Joss Peroni."

She nodded towards them before she found her gaze drifting off in the direction that Alex had left in once again. "What about…"

"Oh," Mark mumbled, shifting his weight uneasily, "that's Acting Sergeant Alex Kirby, you might do well to steer clear of him for a few days. He's doing it rough at the moment."

Kari nodded in confused understanding before suddenly Mark seemed to become more positive. "Kelly will show you around," he said, motioning towards the blonde Constable, who immediately jumped to her feet.

"Sure," Kelly said quickly, combing a strand of blonde hair back behind her ear, "come with me."

The remaining officers in the muster room each shared a brief look, the uncertainty quickly taking hold of the room. None of them had really come to terms with what had happened to Susie and none of them was really ready for a new officer to step up and take her place just yet.

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Kari watched on in silence as Kelly motioned to the property cage, leaning sideways against the wall. "And this," she explained with a wave of her hand, "is our property cage."

Kari nodded, chuckling slightly. "Yeah, I kind of guessed," she replied with a smile that slowly began to fade as thoughts of Alex resurfaced. "What's with…ah…"

"Alex?" Kelly finished, folding her arms across her chest as she nodded in thought. "It's like Mark said, he's doing it rough at the moment."

Kelly sighed at the expectant look that remained on Kari's face as she drew closer, leaning against the wall so that she and Kelly's faces were just centimetres apart. "You were sent here to replace Senior Constable Susie Raynor," she explained, only causing Kari's curiosity to increase. "She was killed several days ago during a siege at the station."

"And she and Alex were…" Kari began, her eyes widening at this. Despite the sympathetic look in her eyes, she couldn't dismiss the curiosity at the idea of an in-office relationship. She'd never seen one before.

"No," Kelly answered with a shake of her head, only to suddenly become quite unsure. She shrugged, tears beginning to fill her eyes at the sight of Susie's body being clutched desperately to Alex's chest. "I don't know." She began shaking her head, trying to force the tears back, but failing miserably. "I just miss her."

Kari nodded, looking away in uneasiness. "I'm sorry," she apologised quietly, "that must have been hard."

"It was," Kelly agreed with a nod as she tried to blink her tears away. "She was a good friend to all of us, Alex especially." She forced a teary laugh, attempting to brush her tears aside with the back of her hand. "Anyway, so where did you come from?"

Kari paused, quite unsure whether or not to respond to Kelly's obvious attempt to change the subject. Finally, she decided it might just be best to go with it. "A little country town a few hours away," she replied, her mind drifting off, "Drover's Creek. I ran the one-man station there."

Kelly laughed at this; however, her expression still remained one of saddened longing for her old friend and occasional mentor, Susie. "So I suppose that Mt. Thomas would be huge for you, huh?"

"Yeah," Kari conceded as Kelly dragged herself away from the wall and headed to the door. "I guess it is."

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Amy paused at Sophie's voice on the other end of the phone, her face losing all expression and her eyes growing blank while PJ watched on worriedly. Something big had just happened at the hospital and it was obvious that Amy didn't like it. She finally put the phone down, climbing to her feet as she pushed hair back behind her ear awkwardly.

"What's happened?" PJ asked, watching Amy in curiosity as he slowly rose to his feet and grabbed his suit jacket.

"That was Sophie," she explained as she met his gaze, "apparently she's got a young woman there who was raped. I've got to get over to the hospital."

PJ jumped to his feet, blocking her speedy exit out the door to the back entrance. He looked at Amy in concern as she turned her gaze away, suddenly falling quite silent. "I know what you get like when you're investigating these cases," he reminded her gently, "don't you think that you should leave it alone?"

"For who, PJ?" she demanded in response as green eyes met blue. "Kelly isn't going to be able to handle it and I'm not letting the newbie take care of it. And if this woman's just been raped, she isn't going to open up to you or Joss!"

"Then I'm coming with you," PJ insisted, pulling his jacket over his shoulders.

Amy shook her head. "No, you're not," she pointed out, "I can handle this, PJ."

"At least take someone with you," he told her quietly, reaching out to her to brush his thumb along her cheek, immediately soothing her slightly. "Maybe Kari, get her out and about in the community."

She nodded slowly, letting PJ lean in to steal a kiss while they were out of sight of their uniformed colleagues. He drew into it, breaking away when he realised that Amy's expression was actually rather blank. For all the time they'd been together and for all the trust between them, she was still affected by the abuse. And this case proved it.


	38. Ep 8: God's Gift To Women Pt2

**Part 2**

Sophie opened the curtains to a hospital cubicle as quietly as she could, ushering Amy and Kari inside. The pair found themselves face to face with a young woman – perhaps no older than Kelly – sitting on the hospital bed, her wrists and face covered in bruises. Amy felt her expression instantly soften into one of sympathy and reluctant remembrance, trying desperately to keep her own dark past at bay.

"Laura," Sophie introduced quietly, sitting down beside the obviously shaken young woman. Laura's short blonde hair failed to hide much of the terror and disbelief in her eyes. "These are Senior Detective Amy and Senior Constable Kari Izumi." Sophie motioned back to the two officers standing in front of the curtain. "They're the police I was telling you about."

Laura nodded hesitantly, her frightened blue eyes scanning the pair up and down critically. Amy glanced over to Kari, only to see that the younger officer beside her had chosen her own line of questioning. "Dr. Ash said that you had been at a party last night, correct?"

Amy narrowed her gaze at Kari, before looking back to Laura in utmost sympathy and concern. She didn't like her new colleague's tone one little bit. It was kind and soft, but lacked the true empathy that Amy had so often prided herself upon with rape victims. The woman across from Amy nodded, as if she wasn't brave enough to speak.

"Who were you at this party with, Ms. Davis?" Kari continued, causing Laura to finally speak out at last.

"My boyfriend," she managed in a shaky and barely audible voice that made Amy's heart break further than it already had. "Keith Richards. It was at one of his mate's houses."

Amy opened her mouth, unsure of what she was going to say, but anything had to be better than where she perceived Kari to be taking the questioning. Unfortunately, the new Senior Constable didn't give her the chance. "Were you drinking or using any sort of drugs on the night of the alleged rape, Ms. Davis?"

Laura didn't respond to this, looking at Kari and Amy blankly. Sophie's eyes narrowed in slight disapproval, something that was mirrored in Amy's expression ten-fold. The detective looked over to her younger colleague, grabbing her wrist tightly. "I think we need to have a word, Senior Constable."

Amy led her new colleague outside of the cubicle and down the corridor, pointing back in the direction from which they'd just come. "What the hell was that?!"

"You see this sort of situation all the time out at Drover's Creek," Kari explained, following the direction of Amy's finger briefly with her gaze. "I'm trying to rule out the possibility that it wasn't drunken love gone wrong."

"That woman," Amy interrupted, her eyes becoming very protective as she bore down upon the officer opposite, "is already going to be going through an emotional hell. Some bastard has just held her down and forced himself on her and she's going to have to live with that for the rest of her life."

Kari looked at Amy in uncertainty, the silence echoing through the corridor as Amy paused to take a breath. "She is already going to have lawyers and judges questioning her every memory and destroying every bit of her confidence when this case gets to court and it is not our job to make her life a hell of a lot harder! I don't know how you did things out at Drover's Creek or wherever, but that is not how we do it here, understood?!"

Amy shot Kari one final glare before storming off down the corridor again to the cubicle she had just come from, unable to quite believe the nerve of their new colleague.

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Amy returned the CI car keys to their hook as Kari headed into the muster room ahead of her, immediately sitting herself down at the desk that had once been Susie's and grabbed up the phone. The muster room was empty, save for Alex sitting at his desk with his head resting in the crook of his arm with a thoroughly defeated expression on his face. She joined her younger colleague, standing over her shoulder with her arms folded against her chest.

"What are you doing?" she demanded in a stern tone. There was something about Kari she couldn't quite like, a sort of strong 'lone ranger' personality that didn't gel at all with her own.

Kari looked up, lowering the phone from her ear as her fingers hovered over the keypad. "I'm calling the Keith Richards guy, getting him to come into the station for a chat."

Amy shook her head in confusion, narrowing her eyes. "And you think that he'd seriously come into the station having raped his own girlfriend the night before?" she demanded coldly, earning the attention of PJ and Mark and causing Alex to look up in mild interest. "You don't ring the suspects to tell them that you're onto them!"

"It's always worked in Drover's Creek," Kari explained with an uncertain shrug. "It's easier to get them on the phone than to spend the next hour searching their property."

"This isn't Drover's Creek!" Amy reminded her harshly, causing her other colleagues to jump slightly. PJ watched on from the CI office door, now regretting his decision to send Kari out with Amy. "Ringing Keith Richards to ask him to come down to the station is the same thing as telling him that we know he raped his girlfriend. All he's going to do is do a runner and put her life in danger."

Kari stopped, lowering the phone as she looked at Amy expectedly. "So what do I do, then?"

"You wait for my instruction to pick Keith Richards up," Amy replied, "I am in charge of this investigation and you will not act without my instruction. The same thing goes for questioning victims and suspects, clear?"

Kari paused, nodding slowly as she looked away. Mark and PJ shared a worried glance while Alex returned his head to the crook of his arm while he moved the mouse of his computer around slowly; obviously trying to pretend that he was doing something of any use. "Clear," she mumbled in stunned reply, watching as Amy looked down at her expectantly.

"Now," Amy continued, straightening herself up, "we will be going to Keith Richards' house to pick him up for questioning and _I _will be taking the lead."

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PJ emerged from the CI office to the charge counter as Amy and Kari led a man in his mid-twenties through to the interview room, despite his protests of police harassment. The man tossed his unkempt black hair back from his face as he caught sight of PJ standing in the doorway, arms folded cross his chest.

"This is crap, the lot of it!" the man – presumedly Keith Richards – protested as Amy and Kari near forced him into the interview room. "I love Laura, I'd never lay a finger on her, I swear."

Kari headed into the interview room, prompting Keith to take a seat, while Amy approached PJ, holding her clipboard tighter to her stomach.

"So this is Keith Richards…" PJ mused, looking the man up and down as he took a seat opposite Kari in the interview room. He looked at Amy, hoping that the concern in his features wasn't too obvious. "You'll be okay, won't you?"

"Of course!" Amy replied, looking up to him with an expressed that she hoped would allay his fears. "Why wouldn't I?"

PJ watched as Amy headed into the interview room, closing the door behind him. His mind could think of a hundred reasons why Amy wouldn't be okay with this case and one of them was definitely Kari Izumi.

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"Now, Mr. Richards," Amy began, pacing the area of the interview room behind where Kari sat as she surveyed the man sitting opposite, looking up at Amy and Kari with disbelief in his eyes. "You attended a party last night at 106 Penthope Road with Laura Davis, correct?"

Keith rolled his eyes, looking up to Amy pointedly. "You've already asked that question and I've already said yes."

"And you are aware that she was raped last night, yes?" Amy continued, pausing as she pulled her clipboard closer.

"Yes, you already said that," Keith answered impatiently, looking to Kari pleadingly. "She can't pull me in here like that, can she?"

Kari shrugged, glancing back to Amy. "Apparently she can."

"I don't know what you want from me," Keith mumbled, his gaze switching between Amy and Kari quickly. "I wasn't even there long."

Amy paused, glancing down to Kari before looking at Keith again. "What do you mean?"

"I left half an hour in," Keith explained with a roll of his eyes. "Laura got pretty tipsy pretty quickly. I don't like it when she gets drunk, so I left."

Kari didn't bother waiting for Amy's reaction before butting in. "So her commonsense was compromised when you left the party?"

Amy shot Kari one of her infamous death glares, heading for the door. "A word, Senior Constable?"

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"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Amy demanded as she rounded on Kari, waving an arm back towards the closed door of the interview room. "That bastard raped his own girlfriend and you're trying to prove that she was drunk!"

"You heard him yourself," Kari pointed out, following Amy's arm with her gaze momentarily. "He said he didn't rape her. He'd left the party long before."

Amy looked away, shaking her head in disbelief. Who the hell did Kari think she was? "And you're taking his word for it?" she asked in indignation. "He's covering his own arse, that's all! I don't know what the hell kind of criminals you dealt with out at Drover's Creek, but criminals here lie!"

The sound of Amy's shouting once again brought PJ out of his office and he approached Amy slowly as Mark emerged. PJ looked Amy up and down as he gently pulled her away from Kari, only causing her to pull away in frustration. Mark looked from Amy to Kari and back again, folding his arms across his chest.

"I think we need to take a break here," he told them firmly, "sort out whatever's going on between you two."


	39. Ep 8: God's Gift To Women Pt3

**Part 3**

Amy paced the floor of the CI office, her shoulders hunched as she began to bite her thumbnail in frustration. PJ sat on the corner of his desk, following her with his eyes. If they weren't in clear view of the rest of their colleagues, he would have happily pulled her into his arms if only to stop her from wearing a track in the floor.

"What the hell does she think she's doing?" Amy suddenly demanded, turning to PJ as she straightened up. "She's interrogating the victim and taking every word of that Richards bastard as gospel!"

PJ followed her hand as she waved it out towards the muster room where Mark was attempting to talk to Kari and make his own headway in the situation. He looked back to Amy sympathetically.

"She's only new," he reminded her gently, "she's not used to the way things work here. You were new once too," he paused, before quickly adding, "or twice."

Amy shook her head, glancing out to the muster room briefly. "But she's too…country-ish!" she protested, shrugging for a lack of a better term for it.

PJ couldn't help but chuckle slightly at Amy's words, shifting his weight on his desk. "Funny," he told her with a smile, "normally it's the other way around."

"I don't know what Drover's Creek was like," Amy told PJ, shortening the gap between them, "but her attitude is stuffing up this case. We just can't work together, Peej, we just can't."

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PJ pulled Mark aside, gently steering him towards his office and away from Kari. Mark looked to him in confusion, shaking his head. "I think Kari should be taken off the case."

"What?" Mark asked in disbelief, shaking his head as he shot a quick glance back to the Senior Constable sitting in the muster room. "Surely something can be resolved between Amy and Kari without someone being removed from the case?"

"I don't think so, no," PJ explained, glancing over to Amy who was watching the events intently from the CI office. "I think I should work with Amy on this one."

Mark looked out to Kari, his mind obviously in turmoil. "Yeah," he conceded reluctantly, "but don't you think that Kari deserves a chance to finish her first case here? It's going to look pretty nasty if we just take her off a case like this."

"It's also going to look pretty nasty if Amy and Kari can't get it together long enough to investigate this as a team," PJ reminded him firmly. "Just trust me on this, if you don't take Kari off the case, they will never be able to work together again and that poor woman is going to be caught in the crossfire."

Mark thought over PJ's words for several moments before nodding slowly. "I'll break it to Kari," he told him as he looked over to the woman sitting in the muster room. "Just get this case solved before this gets to Tony Timms or Lee Cruikshank, okay?"

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PJ looked over to Amy sitting beside him in the interview room, very subdued. She looked a lot more comfortable with him sitting beside him than she had when she had been clashing with Kari. In a way, he wasn't that surprised that Amy and Kari were having difficulties working together – they were both strong, independent people who had their own ways of working that just didn't go well with each other's.

Keith Richards sat opposite, wringing his hands on top of the desk. PJ leant forward slightly, glancing back to Amy briefly. "Was Laura hanging around with anyone in particular when you left the party?" he asked quietly. "Anyone at all?"

Keith closed his eyes as his mind drifted back, finally nodding. "Yeah," he admitted in reply, "an old mate of mine from school, Dean what's his name…Phillips." He paused, almost as if he had caught PJ's line of thought perfectly. "You don't think he'd…the slimy, little bastard."

"I'm not suggesting that this Dean Phillips might be involved in Laura's rape," PJ added quickly as Amy leant forward, obviously having come around to what Kari had ascertained when she had been interviewing Keith with her. Keith Richards hasn't raped his own girlfriend, but someone had. PJ could have sworn that he could feel the anger pulsating from Keith, who was sitting back in his chair, making a mumbled vow under his breath to tear Dean Phillips limb from limb. "We're just trying to determine Laura's movements on the night of the attack…"

But PJ's words fell on deaf ears. Keith looked up, his eyes shining with a burning hatred and a desire for revenge, something that Amy and PJ had both seen before in their years in the job. "Can I go now?" he demanded hotly, looking from one to the other. Amy looked over to PJ, her concern mirrored in his face. Neither of them thought that releasing Keith Richards would be even a remotely good idea. But both of them knew that they couldn't find a reason to make him stay.

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Amy rapped on the door of a small house on Penthope Road, glancing back to PJ as it opened to reveal a man with an average built and cropped blonde hair wearing little more than an old white towel wrapped around his waist. PJ rose an eyebrow and looked away briefly while Amy remained as stern as ever.

"Dean Phillips?" she asked in the cold, merciless voice that she reserved for cases that she had become particularly involved in.

The man nodded, not bothering to adjust his towel as he leant sideways against the doorframe, raising an eyebrow as he looked Amy up and down, almost as if he was checking her out. "Yeah?" he said with an approving smile. "What's up?"

Amy straightened herself as PJ warned Dean off with his eyes. "We'd like you to come down to the station for a word."

"Word?" Dean asked, shooting PJ a quick glare as he did so. "About what?"

PJ opened his mouth to respond, but Amy didn't give him a chance. She didn't like this guy's cocky, sleazy attitude one tiny little bit. "About the fact that Laura Davis was raped at this house last night and all evidence seems to suggest that you might be the culprit."

"Oh," Dean mumbled in reply, suddenly a little less cocky. The period of seriousness didn't last long though, before he had piped back into life again. "That is crap, why would I rape a girl that I could have anyway?"

Amy advanced on Dean, her expression glowering. "And you wonder why we'd suspect you with that kind of sexist attitude?!" she demanded, earning a worried glance from PJ for her troubles. "You like to think that you're God's gift to women, don't you?"

Dean shrugged cheekily, shooting Amy a flirtatious smile. "Is that's your professional opinion?"

"Men like you are the reason I'm not married," Amy continued, her glare becoming more and more full of intense hatred and disgust. "Arrogant, over-sexed bastards who take by force what they can't get in any respectable manner. Men like you make me sick to my stomach!"

PJ moved forward to pull Amy back and diffuse the situation when a loud voice boomed from behind them, startling them into action.

"You raped Laura!"

Amy and PJ spun to see Keith Richards standing at the gate to Dean Phillips' house, an old rifle clutched firmly in his hands and trained on Dean's chest. PJ sprung into action, throwing himself and Amy onto the water-starved grass beside the doorstep as Keith fired, the bullet impacting with Dean's chest and sending him sprawling to the ground.

PJ rolled off Amy slowly as they both looked around at the scene – Dean's bloodied body lying in the doorway to his house and Keith standing at the gate with the rifle in his hands. Something told them that it had all gotten to be just too much for the guy.


	40. Ep 8: God's Gift To Women Pt4

**Part 4**

Kari leant back against the wall of the mess room, staring at the ceiling as if the solutions to her problems might just leap out at her. Mark had removed her from the rape investigation, citing some personality clash with Amy to be the reason. She didn't know why she and Amy just couldn't get past that difference in their methods. She was only using the same things that she had out at Drover's Creek where they'd never failed her.

The door creaked open and Alex emerged, lowering his head instantly rather than make eye contact. "Sorry," he apologised quickly, "didn't mean to disturb you."

He turned to go and Kari almost let him before quickly changing her mind. "No, Alex!" she called, causing him to turn back to fixed her with an expectant stare. "Stay," she told him with a quiet shrug, "I could do with the company."

Alex nodded, inviting himself inside and closing the door behind him. He stood at the opposite end of the room to her, fixing her with the best sympathetic expression he could. "Bad day?"

"Yeah," Kari admitted, letting her head tilt to one side, "you could call it that, I suppose." She gently brushed a strand of black hair back behind her ear as Alex crossed the room to her. "I don't know what's going on with Amy."

Alex shrugged, leaning against the lockers beside her. "Amy's always gotten that way when she's investigating a rape case," he explained with a sigh, "it's just the way she is."

"Yeah?" Kari replied with a weak smile. "I wish she wasn't. Mark took me off the case because we can't get along."

He fixed with an intent stare that told her that she was going to have to continue. "He said something about 'operational differences' or something like that," she explained with a shrug. "I've spent the last three years running my own station; I don't like people telling me to do things their way."

"You don't have to do things 'their' way with no input of your own," Alex pointed out quietly, looking sideways to her. "Out here, it's about teamwork and accepting each other for the way we are. We all didn't automatically like each other when we first arrived. We just got used to each other."

"Got used to each other?" Kari asked with a weak smile. "You make it sound like you hate each other."

Alex forced a smile – the first one since Susie had been killed just days before. "Well, we don't," he explained, "we'd take bullets for each other here, that's the way we work. Amy and PJ would do anything for each other and Kelly and Joss might seem like they can't stand each other, but they're really actually very close."

She fixed him with a curious stare as she nodded. "What about you?" she asked quietly. "Who would you take a bullet for?"

He looked away, suddenly losing any of the optimism that had seeped back into his features. He began to wring his hands in front of his stomach, closing his eyes sadly. "She's dead," he replied softly, desperately willing himself not to cry, "I didn't take the bullet to save her."

Kari's weak smile faded into an expression that near mirrored Alex's. She nodded slowly, looking down to her feet. "Oh," she whispered, remembering what Kelly had told her about Susie, "I'm sorry."

Alex looked over to Kari, dragging himself from the lockers. "Nah," he told her, forcing a smile that barely hid the tears that were threatening to spill over, "don't be sorry. You're not the bastard of an inspector who pulled the trigger, are you?"

He lowered his head again as he left the mess room, dragging his feet along, leaving Kari alone against the lockers, thinking over Alex's words. He had given her some food for thought – if she was going to be able to continue in the job now that she had left Drover's Creek, she was going to have to learn how to work as part of a team as opposed to the lone ranger style she had adopted in previous years. And something told her that there was one person she needed to apologise to the most.

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PJ sat a glass of water down in front of Amy as he headed over to his own desk, surveying her through his kind blue eyes. She glanced up to him, her green eyes very submissive, as if trying to acknowledge her incorrect assumptions towards the case without words. He understood her message, smiling to let her know that he understood her actions. Between them, sometimes actions spoke louder than words ever would.

The door to the CI office opened slowly as Kari peered through, combing strands of hair back from her narrow, dark eyes as she invited herself in silently. She stood before the door, her stance uncomfortable and her eyes conveying her uneasiness. PJ turned to face her as Amy rose the glass of water to her lips, letting the cool liquid trickle down her throat as her colleague spoke. "Yes?" he asked quietly, quickly looking Kari up and down. Her body language was about as submissive as the look in Amy's eyes. Both were clearly sorry that the situation between them had managed to spiral so far beyond their control that day and that people – innocent and otherwise – had become caught up in the crossfire.

"I…" Kari trailed off, obviously not used to being forced to apologise, especially for only trying to do her job. "I just wanted to say…"

"I know," Amy finished for her, knowing quite clearly where this was headed and very uncomfortable with it. She wasn't exactly the most apologetic person, especially where doing her job was concerned. "Keith Richards didn't rape his own girlfriend."

PJ shot Kari a brief glance before fixing his gaze on Amy. He regarded the scene calmly, his eyes taking on an observational quality.

"I know that I haven't exactly been the easiest person to work with," Kari explained, shuffling her weight awkwardly from foot to foot. "I'm not used to working in a team like this. I've been handling things on my own for so long, I've forgotten how to be part of a team."

Amy nodded in understanding, causing PJ's gaze to drift back to her where she sat at her desk, sitting the glass on her desk. "I got caught up trying to solve the case my way," she explained with a saddened sigh. "I took your approach to solving this case to heart and I shouldn't have. It affected my judgement."

PJ sat back in his chair as Kari moved forward, extending her warm and casual hand to Amy. "A clean slate?" Kari asked, shrugging as a smile spread across her face. Amy thought through Kari's words before taking hold of the new officer's hand, shaking it as she did her best to return the smile.

"Yeah," she said with a nod, glancing back to a smiling PJ, "a clean slate."

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Amy glanced up from her paperwork, biting her lip nervously as she studied PJ's face as he continued studiously with his own files. He finally seemed to sense her stare, looking up to shoot her one of his soft and supportive smiles. "It's getting late," he reminded her, earning an uneasy nod.

"Yeah," she mumbled in response, trying her best to return the smile. "I know. It's been a long day."

PJ nodded as he closed the file he was working on and pushed it aside, placing the old blue pen he was using down on top of it. He lifted himself to his feet, sitting on the corner of Amy's desk. He reached down to her, gently running the back of his hand along her cheekbone. "You wanna stay in tonight?" he asked her quietly as she resigned herself to the fact that she wouldn't be finishing her paperwork and pushed it away. "We could order a pizza, maybe hire a movie?"

Amy looked up at him, her eyes shining with small tears. "I got this case wrong today, Peej," she told him in a voice that was scarcely louder than a whisper. "I hammered Keith Richards into a corner to the point that he lost faith in our ability to find who had raped Laura and he took justice into his own hands. I'm the reason Dean Phillips is dead right now and Keith is in prison when all he was doing was doing the world a favour because we wouldn't."

"Aw, Amy," PJ soothed, gently pulling her to her feet and wrapping his arms around her, letting her rest her head in the crook of his shoulder. "People have their own breaking points," he told her softly, "when they reach them, there's nothing anyone can do." He rocked her from side to side gently, closing his eyes as he rubbed her back in an attempt to comfort her. "Not even you could have stopped Keith Richards from taking the law into his own hands. No matter how much you want to believe you could have."

"I don't know, PJ," Amy replied as she pulled away, sighing heavily. "I just should have done something more. Anything more."

He shook his head, rubbing her arm supportively. "But it wouldn't have changed anything," he said sadly, "you're only human."

Amy nodded weakly, attempting to dry the small tears welling in her eyes away with the back of her hand. PJ gave her shoulders a supportive squeeze as he wrapped an arm around her, gently steering her out of the station as he turned off the overhead lamp of her desk.

"So," PJ began as they headed for the car park of the police station, "I was thinking for this movie, maybe we could get _The Terminator_."

She looked up to him, snorting in disbelief. "You are kidding me, right?"

"What?" PJ demanded playfully. "Don't you like _The Terminator_?"

"Can we not get a movie about some muscly guy with a heavy accent and a big gun running around and killing everything?" Amy asked as they closed the door to the station and emerged out into the warm January night.

"But why not?" PJ asked with a pout. "They're the best ones!"

Amy hit his arm playfully, a smile spreading across her face. She would never be able to truly forget the abuse her uncle had put her through – in fact, it would stay with her for the rest of her life – but PJ helped make it seem far away and distant, as though it had been in another lifetime. He made her feel safe again.


	41. Ep 9: The Big Smoke Pt1

**Episode 9: "The Big Smoke"**

**Summary: **_Amy and PJ travel to Sydney for a CI conference, only to find themselves caught up in a revenge plot that leaves them and an old friend in danger. Mark is left speechless at the identity of the new district inspector._

**Part 1**

Amy sat back in the car beside PJ, the warm breeze blowing in through the window as the countryside rushed by, her hair being pulled back tightly off her face. PJ sat behind the wheel of his car, glancing down occasionally at the map book sitting open in his lap as he mumbled to himself, too proud to admit to himself or Amy that he had no idea where exactly they were.

They were somewhere between the border between Victoria and New South Wales, heading up to Sydney for some CI conference that Monica Draper had insisted they attend. It was some nation-wide conference for detectives operating in the CI unit, organised by some Sydney police officer with a formidable reputation, as Monica Draper had described it.

It had been a long drive so far. The landscape had slowly changed from country to city and back again just as quickly. The trees blurring past on the side of the road has morphed from one variety to another seamlessly, interrupted by the occasional field of near-dead grass and half-starved cattle.

Some old CD of PJ's – the Hoodoo Gurus or something, Amy couldn't be sure – was playing in the car's CD player, the music becoming somewhat lost in the sound of the wind ripping past the car. The drive had been pleasant, aside from the fact that PJ had no idea where they were. Amy had a sneaking feeling that the New South Wales countryside wasn't exactly PJ's strongest suit.

"Do you have any idea where we are?" Amy finally asked, sharply turning her gaze away from the landscape outside and looking to PJ with a raised eyebrow. He glanced over to her, snorting in disbelief.

"Do I know where we are…" he mumbled to himself, motioning towards the road ahead with a hand. "Of course I know where we are! We are…" his face faltered as he glanced down to the map book open across his lap, his voice suddenly losing all bravado. "We're somewhere between Mt. Thomas and Sydney."

Amy, satisfied at PJ's confession, reached over to snatch the book from PJ's lap. She studied it intently, shaking her head as a smile spread across her face. "That is why men should never navigate." A green road sign sped past as Amy glanced up from the book, declaring that they were still at least a hundred kilometres from Sydney.

"You know they'll be meeting the new district inspector while we're away," PJ announced, earning a nod from Amy.

"Yeah," she conceded quietly, before looking up to PJ with a weak smile. "But at least they'll get a chance to break them in before we have to deal with them."

PJ nodded thoughtfully, raising an eyebrow in agreement. "Very good point," he admitted, sitting back in the driver's seat. A smile spread across his face as he looked over to Amy, who was now focusing on determining just where they were. Getting away from Mt. Thomas with Amy for a few days was going to be good for them, especially after everything that had happened over the last week. No matter how boring the conference would be.

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"PJ!" Amy shouted as she looked up to the road ahead. "You're in the E-tag lane again!"

PJ swore loudly as he spun the steering wheel quickly to one side, barely managing to pull into the busy lane opposite. With Amy now navigating, they'd finally managed to find their way into the inner city of Sydney, however, had now found the impossible jungle of lanes and toll booths that blocked their way to their motel in the eastern suburbs.

He looked over to Amy, who was nursing the open map book across her plain black skirt, looking up to him tiredly. "What's the point of all these stupid lanes, anyway?" he asked with a smile, or the best attempt he could manage after having been on the road for the best part of the day. "Can't they just have one road and be done with it?"

She returned his tired attempt at humour and sat back in her seat, closing her eyes as what was left of the daylight washed in through the car window and over her body. The CD playing had changed several times over the last hours and had now settled on some Sydney radio station that were playing some rock song from the 80s that Amy had never even heard of before.

"We'll be there soon," PJ assured her, causing her to open her eyes again and look up to him in surprise. She nodded, curling back into her seat. "It's been years since I've been to Sydney," he confessed, digging through his pocket hurried for change for the toll. As soon as they were through, he continued. "Probably when I came up with a mate of mine after we finished year 12."

Amy nodded, looking out her window to notice that they were heading close to the harbour now – through the endless streams of traffic beyond the car's confinement, she could see brief glimpses of blue dotted with little white boats and what could be the bridge coming up. "I've only been to Sydney once," she told him distractedly, "my Dad grew up here, we came up for my Grandpa's funeral when I was six."

PJ paused, a little downtrodden. He nodded slowly, looking back to the road ahead. "I'm sorry," he apologised quickly, shifting his grip on the steering wheel. "Can't say I've ever really liked New South very much," he admitted, "I'm more of a Victoria man myself."

"Yeah," Amy agreed, looking up to PJ with a smile as they headed for the bridge. "Me too."

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Alex yawned as he looked up from the paperwork sitting on his desk to the computer screen, passing a hand across his weary eyes. His head suddenly snapped up at the sight of a piece of paper being slid across the computer keyboard. He picked it up slowly, looking it up and down in confusion. Kari looked at him expectantly from where she sat across at her desk, leaning forward. She waited for him to comment on the rosters she had just handed him, but instead she received nothing but a blank look.

"The rosters," she prompted him, nodding towards the paper in his hand. He just shrugged, his expression becoming confused, only serving to highlight the dark bags under his eyes. "I can't work tomorrow," Kari pointed out softly, "I've got a rostered day off."

He looked over the rosters, shaking his head. Kari leant forward even further, pointing out the shift in question. "There," she said as she tapped the paper with her finger. "I put it in the request book days ago."

"You've only been here since days ago," Alex reminded, offering her the roster sheet back. When she didn't take it, he rolled his eyes and hunched down over the keyboard. "I'll do it again, then," he told her despairingly. Kari watched him, her eyes softening in concern as he resumed working, presumedly this time on the roster sheet she had handed him.

She was interrupted from her thoughts by the entrance of two figures into the muster room, both wearing perfectly pressed police uniforms. Kelly, Joss and Alex looked up from their respective desks and Mark emerged from his office, his face faltering as he met the gaze of the unfamiliar woman. The other, Monica Draper, motioned over towards her.

"Your new Inspector has been appointed," she declared, her hand movements sending the uniform's eyes travelling to the woman standing beside her. She had brown hair that was pulled back tightly into a bun and detached, almost expressionless hazel eyes. Her overall appearance was so stern that it made Monica Draper look as though she had dressed with the intention of simply lounging around. "This is Inspector Piper Morris."

Each of the officers slowly climbed to their feet, their new inspector's stern appearance only serving to add to their earlier apprehension. They each shared an uncertain glance, silently trying to decide who should be the first to react, before Monica Draper decided for them.

"This is the Mt. Thomas uniform deployment," she explained, motioning across the five officers standing in the muster room. "There's Senior Constable Hikari Izumi…"

"You can call me Kari," Kari explained as moved forward, offering Piper Morris a friendly smile as she extended her hand, only for the older officer to not move in response. She nodded as she recoiled her hand, backing away to join Kelly, Joss and Alex back at the cluster of desks in the muster room.

"…Acting Sergeant Alex Kirby," Monica continued, a little fazed herself over Piper's less than welcoming reaction to Kari's show of kindness, "Constables Kelly O'Rourke and Joss Peroni." She then turned to Mark, indicating towards him. "And Acting Senior Sergeant Mark…"

Piper nodded slowly, looking Mark up and down coldly. "Jacobs," she finished for Monica as Mark gulped where he stood, "yes, we've met."

As Monica nodded in weak response and led Piper off for a tour of the station, Mark headed back into his office without a word to his younger charges and closed the door, his mind still barely able to process a single thing. He could only desperately wish that the inspector wasn't Piper Morris. Anyone but Piper Morris.

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PJ opened the door to the motel room that he and Amy would share as she pushed past him, throwing herself onto the biggest bed in the room – the large queen-size bed next to the window. Apparently there was only one room for each pair of officers, or at least that was the receptionist's excuse. Either way, he didn't mind sharing a room with Amy and she didn't seem to have too many qualms about it either.

He closed the door behind him as he pulled his suitcase through the door, his face falling as he realised that Amy had taken the big bed, leaving him with the poorly-made trundle bed next to it. "Hey, hey, hey!" he protested teasingly, standing next to the bed with arms folded across his chest while Amy looked up to him with a smile. "Who said you could have the biggest bed?"

"I got here first," she reminded him with as close to a flirtatious smile that Amy Fox would ever be able to manage. PJ just shook his head, his eyes sparkling.

"Yeah, but I'm the biggest and the oldest," he pointed out, his argument interrupted when Amy suddenly leant up to kiss him. He slowly drew further into it, just as Amy did the same. Just as he was reaching to run his fingers back through her beautiful hair, a knock sounded at the door and the pair broke apart suddenly.

Their initial shock and horror slowly faded as they struggled to restrain laughter. It was almost funny. PJ quickly straightened himself as best he could after having spent nearly the entire day behind the wheel of a car and opened the door, exposing a man slightly shorter than himself and slightly more pudgy, wearing an old, faded blue suit. He smoothed over what was left of his balding brown hair as he invited himself inside, causing Amy to rise to her feet out of instinct.

"Ah," the man exclaimed, looking them over with a nod, "you must be the Mt. Thomas coppers! Uh…Hasham and Fox, right?"

PJ nodded as Amy drew level with him, sharing a brief glance with him. "Yeah," he admitted with a nod, "that's right."

The man extended a pudgy hand, his smile broadening. "I'm Detective Senior Sergeant Darryl Frost," he introduced, grabbing PJ's hand from his side and shaking it firmly. He then looked to Amy, nodding in acknowledgement of her presence. "When I was organising this conference, I knew I had to grab the Mt. Thomas detectives. Not only do you come from a town that is urban legend, you've even got some of the best solve rates in the state!"

Amy flushed bright red as Darryl nodded, turning to head out into the corridor. "Anyway," he continued with a smile, "we're having some drinks down at the local hotel, feel free to join us."

PJ mumbled a quick reply as Darryl disappeared out into the corridor, humming some song to himself as he went. That man was so jolly – for a lack of a better term – that it wasn't even funny. He turned back to Amy to find her leaning on the rail on the balcony beyond the window. He smiled to himself as he joined her, the pair looking out over the air conditioning vents before them.

They formed a stark contrast – PJ in one of his oldest t-shirts, shorts and joggers and Amy in one of her white shirts and a black skirt. The hot breeze blew Amy's hair across her face, causing the curtain behind them to gently flow back and forth.

"The big smoke, huh?" PJ said with a smile, sighing heavily. "I think I remember why I decided to stay on in Mt. Thomas."

"Yeah," Amy agreed with a smile, stealing a brief yet tender kiss before heading back inside. "I might get changed before we head over to the hotel, okay?"

PJ nodded as he watched Amy dig through her suitcase, finally settling on one of her usual black suits and a perfectly folded green shirt. There was something very exclusive about the two of them together in Sydney. Something that made them feel very at ease. Here, they were just two ordinary people out of thousands. Anything that could happen here could also be left here. It was a nice feeling.

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Amy and PJ stepped through the double glass doors into the hotel, any pre-conceived ideas that they'd had about its interior immediately blown away. It was very nice, with maroon coloured carpet that somehow seemed to suit the green paint over the walls. Matching maroon couches sat in a far corner and a large widescreen TV was mounted in the corner opposite. Tables of varying lengths dotted the room, nearly every available area around it containing a chair with fabric that matched the couch and carpet. Near one of the side windows were a long, simple bar and a window through to what could be the kitchen. Several doorways lead off out of the room to most likely toilets and perhaps further drinking space.

Figures wearing perfectly pressed suits and perfectly done hair dotted the room, introducing themselves casually over a drink. It was impossible to tell who had come with whom, something that didn't surprise either of them. They had the feeling that they would be the only ones who would be sticking to each other's sides during this conference.

A man leaning against a far wall, looking down into his glass as he offered a weak laugh in response to a joke seemed to suddenly burst into life as he recognised the two detectives who had just entered. He abandoned his glass on the first table he passed and approached Amy and PJ, their own faces lighting up in recognition.

"Jonesy?" PJ asked in confusion as Jonesy stopped in front of them, smiling broadly at the pair. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here for the conference," Jonesy replied as he straightened his very casual suit – a style that was mimicked nearly perfectly in PJ's own clothes. "I didn't think that Mt. Thomas detectives would be invited."

Amy shuffled her weight awkwardly as she laughed. "Well," she told him with a smile, "neither did we."

Jonesy motioned over his shoulder to the bar, where a young blonde wearing a less than modest t-shirt was serving a couple of male detectives two tall glasses of bear. "How about I grab something for us to drink?" he asked with a smile, earning a nod from PJ and Amy. He headed over to the bar, pulling an old leather wallet from his back pocket as he went.

"Evan Jones," PJ said with a laugh as he turned to Amy, who was shaking her head in disbelief, "what do you know? I didn't think he'd ever get into CI. Then again, I suppose he is a Jones."

Amy nodded in agreement as Jonesy turned to head back to them, juggling three glasses of beer in his hands. Suddenly, a loud explosion of noise could be heard from somewhere nearby, sending a hot rush of flame ripping through the building. The pair were knocked from their feet by a blast of hot air and the pandemonium around them faded to black.


	42. Ep 9: The Big Smoke Pt2

**Part 2**

Chaos. Heat. Fire. Burning. Amy's eyes opened slowly a she was met with an incomprehensible blur of heat and noise around her, screams and sirens and shouting. It took less than a second before her brain had finally become clear enough to process the intense burning pain at the side of her face, her cheek perhaps. She tried to blink away the smoke and fog in her eyes as she pushed herself up slowly, bits of glass falling to the ash-stained carpet from her back. Beside her, PJ was just waking up himself, groaning in pain as he tried to push himself up. She crawled the short distance over to him, shaking his shoulder gently.

"PJ!" she called, earning only a weak groan of her name in reply. "It's going to be alright," she assured him as she looked up and squinted her eyes in a desperate attempt to see through the hot black smoke.

Amidst the commotion and noise, she could hear a familiar voice call out to them from somewhere near where the bar might have once stood. "PJ! Amy!"

Amy recognised the voice instantly, raising her head as rose her voice to as loud as she could manage. "Jonesy!" she shouted in reply, her voice croaky from the putrid smoke. "Jonesy!"

Jonesy appeared through the smoke, stooped over as best as he could with his shirt pulled up over his nose and mouth. He looked Amy and PJ over, unable to hide the worry in his voice at the sight of PJ still lying on the ground and Amy's cheek. "We'd better get out of here," he told them, gently pulling PJ to his feet and letting the injured detective wrap an arm around his shoulders. PJ had taken a knock to the head and he didn't seem to be able to walk. "It's okay, mate," he assured PJ as he helped the detective to limp out, followed closely by Amy, whose cheek was now an explosion of pain. "It'll be right."

As soon as they were clear of what would have once been the glass doors, Jonesy gently let PJ slide down onto the curb, resting his sore and swollen ankle out in front of him. The detective looked up to Amy, who looked rather pale herself. "You're hurt," he told her.

"I'm fine," Amy lied, gritting her teeth to try to block the pain. The trio looked around the disaster zone where police officers, fire fighters and ambos had gathered. Judging by the lack of attention they were being paid, they weren't high-priority cases. Other detectives that had been casually chatting just minutes before were in far worse condition then themselves, being fussed over by ambulance officers.

It took several minutes before finally a couple of ambulance officers jogged over to them, not even bothering to stop and ask them how they felt, instead choosing to bark their findings of Amy and PJ's injuries to each other.

"We've got a nasty burn here," one – a young female with straggly blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail – called out, "possibly full-thickness in parts. Possible glass embedded in the injury too."

Her partner – a bulkier male with cropped black hair – surveyed PJ, prodding and rubbing his swollen ankle, despite PJ's yelps of pain. "Looks like we've got a sprained ankle here," he shouted as he quickly but gently pulled PJ to his feet, letting his lean against the ambo for support. "They'll need hospital treatment."

Jonesy watched helplessly as Amy and PJ were led away towards one of the multiple ambulances that had gathered on the street outside what had just minutes before been a hotel. He motioned over to the area around where the car park was, retrieving his keys from his pocket.

"I'll meet you at the hospital, 'kay?" he called to Amy and PJ, only earning weak nods in response. He turned on his heel and dashed off, gripping the keys tightly in his hand as a stress relief. In less than half a second, the supposedly career-aiding conference that Tess had pressured him into attending had turned into a living nightmare.

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Mark kept his head low in his office, eyes closed tightly. It had been years since he'd last seen Piper Morris – at least twenty, in fact. He couldn't comprehend why she would ever have accepted a position out in St. Davids, especially when last time he'd heard of her; she had the world at her feet. Piper Morris had always had the world at her feet. She was the ambitious sort that would step over her own mother if it would enable her to move forward. But she was a definite straight-shooter. She couldn't be anything else.

Suddenly, the horribly repetitive rock song that had been playing on the radio out in the muster room – a recent institution to boost morale in the wake of Susie's death – was interrupted by the rhythmic, droning voice of 3SD's male newsreader.

"We interrupt this song to bring you an urgent news broadcast," he proclaimed, earning the attention of the officers in the muster room, even that of Alex who was struggling to correct the faulty rosters. Mark slowly rose to his feet, opening the door of his office to lean against the doorframe. Silence fell amongst the officers as they each leant into the radio in earnest, sharing an intrigued glance. "A conference taking place in Sydney for members of Criminal Investigation units across the country has been the target of a bombing after a hotel where the visiting officers were drinking has been blown up."

The silence within the station suddenly turned to panicked whispers as the newsreader's words set in. They each shared a worried glance as the ramifications of this set in. Amy and PJ were in danger…again.

"As such, the authorities haven't released any information to us, but we'll be sure to bring you the latest news on this attack as soon as it is available to us," the newsreader finished. "But for now, we'll take you back to your listening pleasure with a little something from…"

Mark stepped forward, switching the radio off as he looked to his concerned and increasingly panicked members. He motioned to the television set in the corner. "Kelly," he told her, "I want you to keep an eye on the local TV station. See what they've got." He turned to Joss as Kelly scampered over to the TV, calling out a "yes Mark" in reply. "Joss, there's a portable TV in the property cage, bring it out here and get it set up for me."

"But that's evidence in an upcoming case," Joss replied, looking up to Mark in confusion. "We can't…"

"Just get it, Peroni," Mark told him firmly, his voice attaining a very "Boss" quality about it that no one had ever dared mess with. He rounded on Kari and Alex, motioning to the phones on their desks. "Get onto the coppers up in Sydney," he told them as he retreated to his office. "I want to know exactly what is going on."

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Jonesy slipped into the cubicle where a nurse was tending to Amy's cheek, obviously causing much pain to Amy. She picked out what could have been a tiny fragment of glass and stepped away, sorting through the items on the little metal trolley nearby.

"I don't think it's serious," she explained in a very no-nonsense city manner that Amy had almost forgotten existed. "It's not full-thickness, so it will heal on its own."

She placed a clean white dressing against Amy's burn, taping it in place. "It'll sting for a while," she continued calmly as she began to clean up, "but Panadol ought to take care of that."

Amy nodded, raising a hand to her cheek defensively. Jonesy shifted his weight from foot to foot where he stood just inside the curtain, watching on in silence. The nurse looked over to Amy, smiling at her weakly in the first sign of a soul beneath the worn professional exterior.

"Take it easy, okay?" she told Amy, not waiting for a response before disappearing out of the curtains, pulling them shut sharply behind her.

Jonesy moved from his post slowly as Amy lowered her gaze, her mind still not processing anything at all. He reached out, gently taking her hand and giving it a friendly and encouraging squeeze. She looked up at him finally with teary green eyes, unable to hide a weak smile at the sympathy in his eyes. Tess had done him a world of good.

"I just spoke to Tess," he explained, sitting down beside Amy on the hospital bed. He sat back staring at the white ceiling that put Mt. Thomas Hospital's to shame for being bland and starchy. Amy shot him an expectant stare that told him more than words ever could. She wanted to know exactly how everyone else was reacting to this. She knew that this was going to be front page news – the last time that police had been so openly targeted in this sort of manner was when the Mt. Thomas police station had been blown up. "She's worried sick. She told me that I should come home, but I didn't want to leave you guys. Especially in the middle of this."

Amy nodded in understanding, her expectant stare becoming one of the utmost concern and worry. Her mind had travelled to PJ and his welfare, wherever he had been taken when they'd gotten to the hospital. "What about PJ?"

"Sprained ankle," Jonesy replied, meeting Amy's eyes for the first time ever. They shared a silent understanding; something that they both sort of wished had been created when they had worked together. They had methods of working that had gone relatively well together – not as well together as she and PJ – but still well. "It's nothing serious. They're just letting him go now."

Amy nodded, unable to stop the thoughts about Tess and Jonesy from flowing. Jonesy had a very PJ-esque quality about him with Tess, something that no doubt stemmed from the fact that Tess was very much like her. From the moment Tess had walked into the police station with her son in her arms and her husband at her side, Amy had been unable to quell the realisation that Tess was so much like her. They were both the walking wounded, damaged people trying to live normal lives in a world that couldn't care. But she and Tess were the lucky ones, they'd found their caring, strong protectors who would rather take a bullet than see them hurt again.

"We're the lucky ones, you know," Jonesy continued, looking over to Amy intently, seeking some sort of reaction. He had never before seen Amy Fox lost for words. If anyone could find something to say in any given situation, it was her. "Apparently a couple of detectives were killed instantly. And there's a few more that might not make it through the night. I overheard a couple of the docs talking about them."

Amy nodded slowly, looking away from him as she drew her knees close to her chest. She closed her eyes, only to be greeted with a terrifying image of flying debris and hot flame. "Yeah," she admitted weakly, looking over to Jonesy with a nod, "we are."

The curtains opened again as PJ hobbled through, holding his left shoe in his hand as he tried to keep as much weight as possible off his bandaged foot. His head had been tended to and now had a small dressing taped over the cut. He limped over to Amy, pulling her into his arms despite Jonesy only sitting just centimetres away.

She let herself go and buried her head in PJ's ash-covered shirt, closing her eyes tightly. She still didn't quite know what had happened, but whatever it was, they'd gotten out alive.

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Kelly entered the reception area, meeting Chris at the desk where she was pressing the buzzer repeatedly. She had never seen the publican so stressed before in her life and that was saying something. "Chris?" she asked quietly, closing the door behind her. "What's this about?"

"I heard on the radio about the bombing at the conference in Sydney," Chris explained, her voice ragged and desperate. For some reason, Kelly wouldn't have been surprised if she'd run at full speed all the way to the station. "Apparently two detectives have already been announced dead."

Kelly swore quietly under her breath, looking away.

"I've got people down at the pub trying to give me their condolences because they think that Amy and PJ are dead. What's going on?" Chris demanded, unable to remain even remotely angry beneath her stress and concern.

The blonde sighed, letting her weight rest against the counter. She shrugged, her eyes telling the story of how hopeless the situation had become. "I don't know, Chris," she admitted with tears in her eyes. "I just don't know."


	43. Ep 9: The Big Smoke Pt3

**Part 3**

Tess paced the hallway of the house she and Jonesy had made into a home, running a delicate hand back through her curls in sheer frustration. In the living, their second-hand TV set was at a dull roar, providing updates every five to fifteen minutes about the fiasco up in Sydney that she had unknowingly sent Jonesy up to become involved in. The stereo system sitting on the opposite side of the room to the television was also switched on in the desperate hope that they would provide her with the news on her husband that her work colleagues couldn't.

She could barely keep the tears of fear and frustration from her eyes as she finally gave up on pacing the carpet and dived for the phone, dialling a number she hadn't even thought about in about a year, yet still came naturally to her. The Mt. Thomas police station.

---------------------------------------------------

Kari sat the phone back in its cradle on her desk, letting her head sink forward into the crook of her arm. She watched through one eye as Kelly sat in front of the television set, remote control in her hand while Joss sat beside her, the portable TV from the property cage set up on a small area he'd manage to clear on his desk. Alex was sitting at his desk, drowning his sorrows in a coffee.

She finally rose her head, craning her neck to get a look at the television on Joss' desk. A man wearing a perfectly pressed and immaculately clean suit stood in the foreground, a microphone in his hand as he slowly moved along the front of what must have once been the hotel. In the background, multiple figures in professional-looking suits and uniforms walked around, some sifting through the rubble and ash while others noted things down on clipboards and compared them to those of others nearby and just looking official. The reporter spoke in an emotionally detached voice as he spoke about the horror and tragedy of the bombing, only causing him to sound as though all he had on his mind were ratings figures.

The phone rang from where she had just set it down, causing Kari to jump with fright. After taking a second to compose herself, she grabbed it, sitting back in her chair so that she could get a good view of the television Kelly was watching, where Lee Cruikshank was giving a report from just outside the police station. Seeing this, Kelly rose to her feet and headed for Mark's office, closing the door quietly behind her. Kari held the phone to her ear, not even able to open her mouth to speak before a rushed and distressed voice came through the phone line.

"It's Tess Gallagher," Tess explained from the hallway of her house, collapsing back into the chair by the phone as she buried her face in her hand. "Can I talk to someone?"

Kari looked at the phone in confusion as Alex looked up from his coffee, fixing her with a curious stare. "Who's that?" he asked quietly.

She held the receiver out to him as he took is in bewilderment. "Someone called Tess Gallagher," she replied as she climbed to her feet, excusing herself silently with a wave of her hand, "she sounds worried."

Alex watched Kari as she left, ironing a crease from her pants as she headed down the corridor. He rose the phone to his ear, resting forward on his elbows. "Tess?" he asked, unable to keep the worry out of his own voice. "What's happened?"

Tess looked up from her hand at the sound of Alex Kirby's voice on the other end of the phone. She lowered her hand slowly from her forehead, letting it rest over her old, faded pink pyjamas that she had had since long before little Evan was born. "Alex?" she responded, her voice stunned momentarily in uncertainty. She nor Jonesy had managed to get up the courage to get in contact with him since Susie died, let alone attend the funeral. The uncertainty in her voice, however, was soon replaced by desperate concern. "Have you heard anything about that bombing in Sydney?"

Alex sat back at his desk, his brow furrowing in puzzlement at the tone in Tess' voice. Curiosity he could have understood, but Tess was clearly very concerned. He'd never heard her sound so worried since Jonesy had been injured saving her life all those months ago. He shook his head slowly, using his free hand to flick a fly that had somehow found its way into the station from his desk. "Nothing," he replied dismally, "nothing that the TV or radio hasn't said." On the other end of the phone, he could hear Tess beginning to sob, the sound sending a pang through his heart. Something was very wrong. "Tess," he soothed gently, "what's happened?"

Sitting beside the phone, Tess had buried her face in her hand again as she tried to control her tears. She shouldn't panic, her Evan was fine and he had told her so himself, but she couldn't help but worry. She wouldn't be able to relax until he was back in her arms. "It's Evan," she began before pressing her lips together in a desperate attempt to stop the tears that were falling.

"Evan?" Alex asked her, his voice as blank as his eyes. Joss looked up from the television on his, watching Alex in anticipation. He felt his stomach give a sudden, sickening lurch as his mind finally processed enough to realise just who Tess meant by Evan, and it wasn't her little boy. It was Jonesy. "Jonesy? What's happened?"

Tess could hear the sound that she instantly recognised to be the cries of her son in his room further down the hallway. She closed her eyes tightly, before finally deciding to respond to Alex's question. "I forced him to go up to that bloody conference!" she told him, her voice more teary than she would have liked. "I told him it'd be good for his career!"

Alex sat forward quickly, his eyes darkening as his mind reached a very bleak realisation. "Jonesy was at that conference too? Is he okay?"

"He rang about fifteen minutes ago," Tess explained as she tried to dry her cheeks with the back of her hand. "He's fine. He won't come home though; he said something about staying with PJ and Amy."

"PJ and Amy?" Alex asked. "What do you know about them?"

Kari returned from the mess room, pausing in the doorway at the mention of Amy and PJ's names. Even Mark emerged from his office, mouthing silent pleas for more information to Alex.

"Evan said that they'd been injured," Tess explained as she rubbed her eyes, hoping to clear her fuzzy brain. "Apparently PJ's done something to his ankle and Amy's been burnt. He said it's not very serious, though."

Alex nodded, trying his best to sound sympathetic. He was grateful that Amy and PJ weren't badly hurt; it meant that he still had a chance to make his peace. He still hadn't found it within himself to make up with them since Susie had given her life to save them. He tried to convey a positive and optimistic voice to Tess in an attempt to calm her down. "You know Jonesy as well as I do," he told her, forcing a weak hint of laughter into her tone, "stubborn bloody thing. Once he gets an idea into his head, that's it. He'll be fine, you'll see."

Tess nodded in a desperate attempt to convince herself that Alex was right as little Evan emerged from his bedroom, Puddles in tow. Puddles had taken to sleeping in the young boy's bed over the last few months, something that Tess had originally reprimanded the dog for until Jonesy had convinced her otherwise. Seeing her son standing in the hallway, looking up at her with wide, curious eyes prompted Tess to end her conversation with Alex. "If you hear anything," she told him in as firm a tone as she could muster, "you'll let me know, won't you?"

"Of course!" Alex replied, nodding despite the fact that Tess could never see him over the phone line. "Thanks, Tess. Bye."

"Bye," Tess repeated, slowly returning the phone to its cradle. She rose to tentative feet, heading down the hallway to scoop little Evan up into her arms, pressing her lips gently against his mop of blonde curls. She couldn't help but find herself praying desperately that her Evan would find his way home again, no matter how right everything Alex had told her was.

Alex set the phone down again, only to be met with the intense curious stares on the faces of his colleagues. He sat back, drawing in a deep breath. "That was Tess," he told them needlessly. "Apparently Jonesy's up at that concert too."

Joss swore quietly where he sat, while Mark shuffled his weight awkwardly. "Is he alright?" Mark asked. "And what about PJ and Amy?"

"He rang her fifteen minutes ago," Alex explained, looking at each in turn. "He said he's fine and Amy and PJ had been injured." Upon noticing the worried looks on his colleagues' faces, he continued. "According to Jonesy, they're not seriously hurt. PJ's hurt his ankle and Amy's been burnt, but not badly."

"Well, that's a relief," Kari chimed in, causing Mark, Alex and Joss to turn to face her. "That means that they're going to be fine. Who are Tess and Jonesy, anyway?"

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Mark headed to the back entrance at the sound of protests, only to find Kelly leading Lee Cruikshank along the corridor and into the passive interview room.

"Can you get this bitch off me?!" Lee demanded, trying to pull herself away from Kelly's firm grip. "She just barged in during a report and pulled me into the station!"

Mark nodded, looking over to Kelly approvingly as she forced Lee into the passive interview room gently, closing the door so that the three stood in the small room. "I know," he told her with a weak attempt at a smile, "I told her to bring you in here. You seem to know more about this situation than we do."

Lee looked at him expectantly, shaking her head. "Isn't that a sign of a divided police force, Acting Senior Sergeant?"

"When I brought her into the station," Kelly explained, her arms folded across her chest, "she was claiming that this was the work of a terrorist organisation."

Mark rose an eyebrow, turning to Lee sceptically. "Terrorist organisation? In Australia?"

The reporter shrugged, making it very clear to Mark and Kelly that she was playing her cards close to her chest. "You never know," she told them, "they don't discriminate."

Kelly looked up to Mark, silently begging him with her eyes to do something to sort out the situation. He straightened himself as he looked Lee in the eye, trying to keep himself as composed as possible. "If I find out that you are spreading anymore of these rumours, then we will have you charged with hinder police and attempt to pervert the course of justice, understood?"

"Perfectly," Lee replied, eyeing them suspiciously, "Acting Senior Sergeant."

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Amy rolled over in the double bed of the motel room, adjusting the hard, stiff pillow beneath the side of her head. In stark contrast to just an hour ago when she couldn't process anything, now her mind just wouldn't stop. It felt as though her brain was only processing white fuzz. Every time she tried to close her eyes to catch even a few minutes worth of sleep, she'd find herself becoming uncomfortable or too hot or needing to go to the toilet.

She watched Jonesy as he lay on the floor next to the door, one of the room's spare pillows under his head as he slept with his back to her, still wearing that day's clothes. Apparently the detective who had come to the conference from their Melbourne police station had decided to leave as soon as possible and was probably half-way out of the city by now, or at least trapped in the usual city traffic. Jonesy hadn't even requested a blanket, asking only for a section of floor space and a pillow. He was a good man, something that Amy knew the world was lacking these days.

Stretching as she did so, she rolled over to see PJ lying beside her on the trundle bed, eyes closed even though she could tell that he was having the same trouble sleeping as she did. He stirred occasionally to adjust his position of the bed, but otherwise remained still, eyelids pressed closed tightly.

Finally giving up on sleeping, Amy climbed out of bed, pulling herself free of the bedclothes. She stepped around PJ's trundle bed gently, trying not to disturb him as best she could. The warm late-January night rushed in to greet her as she opened the glass window, stepping out onto the balcony to stare over the air-conditioning vents thoughtfully, wearing her old blue pyjamas.

The air was still and stale on her face, somehow adding to the uneasy atmosphere of what had only hours before been a confident and bustling city. She couldn't hear the rush of cars and lights and noise out in the streets below that she was so accustomed to in the city. Back in Melbourne, those traffic noises through the night had eventually become something she had become quite used to. Everything now felt too quiet, but not the pleasant kind of quiet she so loved about Mt. Thomas.

PJ drew up beside her at the railing for the second time the day, looking at her worriedly as he limped towards her. "You can't sleep either, then."

She shook her head, turning to face him with the beginning of frustrated tears in her eyes. She waved an arm around, hoping that it might help the thoughts racing through her head form logical sentences. "My mind just keeps going around and around…" she told him, finally closing her eyes momentarily as she looked away. She fixed her sight out in the skyline of high-rise buildings. "I'm just scared of who would want to do this sort of thing."

He nodded in understanding, reaching out to hold her head close to his heart. He rocked her in his arms, delighting in the simple presence of her body so close to his own. "You've still got me, hey?" he told her, forcing a smile for his sake as much as hers as he let his chin rest on the top of Amy's head. "And that's what matters."

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Joss ran his lips along Kelly's cheekbone, slowly making his way along her neck. However, no matter how romantic he tried to be or how tenderly he let his lips brush her soft, sweet skin, she didn't seem to be at all interested. He pulled away, letting her leave his arms as she finally moved away, crossing Joss' living room as she combed blonde strands of hair back from her face.

"Kel…" he told her, his voice tinged with impatience and a lack of understanding. Something told him that she was still thinking about that bombing in Sydney, she was always more sensitive to those sorts of things than he was. She finally turned to face him, her lips pressed together tightly.

"I can't do this, Joss," she explained, shaking her head. "Not tonight. Not after this…"

He pulled himself to his feet, approaching her. He wrapped his fingers gently around the soft skin of her forearm, the mere sensation of her skin against his sending excited shivers through his body. She was the most perfect thing that he had ever had in his life before and it pained him to see her upset.

"But they're okay," he reminded her in what he hoped was a soft and sensitive tone. "Amy, PJ and Jonesy, they're all fine, remember?"

She tried to pull her arm away, but Joss' grip remained firm, despite its looseness. "Yeah, but there's others who didn't get out," she pointed out, meeting his eyes weakly. They pleaded with her, nagging at her heart to reconsider. "I just don't think I can do this tonight."

Joss nodded, reaching out to gently guide her into his arms and close to his chest. She didn't pulled away, instead wrapping her arms around his torso and holding to him as she let her head rest against his shoulder. This was one hell of a mess.

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Alex's heart sank heavily as he found himself standing once again in the doorway to Susie's room, what little of her belongings that her parents had left behind serving as a stern reminder that she just wasn't there anymore. Not many of her things had been left behind, just a few odds and ends that seemed to have little significance to anyone other than Alex. Simple things, like a watch or hair bands or her pillow. Often during the lonely hours of the early morning, he would step over the threshold into her bedroom, pulling the pillow into his arms, burying his face in what was left of her scent. He missed his Susie more than anything, now more than ever.

PJ's words came to mind, jolting him slightly. As much as PJ's words sounded like the stupidest things on the planet, they made sense in a crazy kind of way. Life was going to have to be a matter of putting one foot in front of the other for a while until eventually, things didn't hurt so much anymore.

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Kari lay back on the old, run-down couch of her small flat, resting her arm back behind her head as she flipped through an old paperback novel with her other hand. She couldn't get her mind off the images of destruction that had adorned the news for a great portion of the evening. Even with the things she'd seen and heard during her four short years in Melbourne, she had never been able to prepare herself for that sort of thing. She'd heard about what fate the last Mt. Thomas police station had faced – you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who hadn't – but somehow, she'd managed to distance herself from those sorts of things. They were the sorts of horrors that happened to other people, not to anyone she cared about. Certainly not to colleagues.

She finally gave up on preoccupying herself with the fanciful masquerades of the star-crossed lovers in the novel and let it slide to the floor beside the couch, closing her eyes tightly as she let her body sink back further into the comfortable, worn material. She had barely done anything difficult today, yet she felt more exhausted than she had in a long while.

Finally giving into the tiredness that had plagued her for the last few hours, she rolled over and let her body surrender to the sleep it so desperately craved.

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Mark sank back further into the new lounge that Penny had bought just last week, attempting to focus on the late-night quiz show on screen while his eyes protested for sleep. He let his hand tighten slightly around the remote control in his lap as he shifted position so that he was now leaning against the stiff arm of the lounge. The television cast an oddly comforting glow around the living room as the young would-be celebrity onscreen continued to ask his inane questions and receive answers of the same calibre from the people gullible enough to phone in.

From the entrance to the hallway, he could hear Penny's voice as she leant against the wall, her eyes narrowed as she regarded her husband critically. "Come to bed," she told him in as close to a soothing voice as Penny Jacobs could manage. She padded barefoot across the old shagpile carpet, leaning over the back of the lounge to massage Mark's shoulders.

He shrugged her away gently, shaking his head. He knew that going to bed would be a fruitless exercise, given that day's events. Piper Morris showing up as the district Inspector was bad enough; a bombing involving three members he knew quite well was just too much. "Not tonight, Penny."

Penny sighed in frustration, spinning on her heel as she stormed up the hallway to their room, her feet pounding on the carpet a little bit louder than she really needed to. Mark let his head sink into his hand just as yet another caller on the late-night quiz show failed to suggest an occupation being with p. Everything in his life lately seemed to go from bad to worse and his relationship with his wife was slowly following that pattern.


	44. Ep 9: The Big Smoke Pt4

**Part 4**

A loud rap at the door disturbed Amy from her fitful sleep in the large bed of the Sydney motel room she shared with PJ and Jonesy, the sound apparently having stirred the two boys either side of her awake. Jonesy, being closest to the door, climbed to his feet, stretching tentatively to flex his stiff body. He opened it, exposing none other than Darryl Frost standing in the doorway, now covered in cuts and minor burns.

"Hardly a good morning, is it?" he asked as he invited himself past Jonesy and into the bedroom, causing Amy to pull the blankets around herself instinctively. She wasn't insecure about PJ or even Jonesy seeing her in her pyjamas. But a complete stranger who had invited them to this chaotic nightmare wasn't exactly the sort of person she'd be happy to show her old pyjamas to. Almost as if he had decided to do what was the last thing Amy wanted him to, he sat back on the end of her bed, looking them over with that 'jolly' smile of his that was quickly becoming very irritating. "The guys at Sydney Homicide will be wanting to speak to you, get statements, the usual stuff."

PJ nodded as he climbed out of bed, perching himself beside Amy. He rose his injured ankle, letting it rest on his bed. Jonesy, noticing the very crowded nature of Amy's bed, decided to head into the kitchen, pouring himself a glass of water from the tap. At the first sip, he nearly spat it out again. He'd forgotten just how horrid Sydney water could taste like.

"Yeah," Darryl said, unable to hide a chuckle at Jonesy's disgusted expression, "I was about to tell you not to drink the water." He turned back to the two detectives on the bed, his smile fading slightly. In fact, his expression looked about as serious as Darryl Frost was ever likely to get. "Be careful what you tell those guys, right," he advised them, lowering his voice so that Jonesy had to leave his post in the kitchenette to hear him. "Just…think before you say anything."

Amy narrowed her eyes, her mind leaping into life as it began to tick over what Darryl Frost had just told them. She opened her mouth to comment, only for the sound of Jonesy's mobile ringing on the floor beside where he'd spent the night to disturb the conversation. Darryl laughed, leaning back casually as Jonesy scampered over, his eyes rolling at the sight of Tess' name on the screen.

"The wife, huh?" Darryl asked with a smile, the relaxed stare he shot Amy and PJ telling them that the topic of Sydney Homicide was now closed. As Jonesy rose the phone to his ear, the detective sitting on the end of Amy's bed climbed to his feet, smiling at them, his eyes silently and subtly reminding them of his words. He left the motel room without another word, letting the door swing closed behind him.

Amy looked over to PJ, eyebrow raised. She met his equally confused blue eyes, silently sharing a real concern. Darryl Frost wasn't the jolly man they'd perceived him to be and now he was making comments that neither of them very much liked the sound of.

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Amy stood alone in the silent corridor of the Sydney Homicide building, the cold grey walls sending an unpleasant chill up her spine. She began to wring the strap of her black bag sitting on her lap in her hands, biting her bottom lip to try to distract herself from the uneasiness of her location. If it wasn't for the sounds of Jonesy physically and verbally abusing the drinks machine ten metres away, the building would be completely silent.

A couple of high ranking Homicide detectives had steered the hobbling PJ further down the corridor to an interview room for a "friendly chat". Somehow, if Darryl Frost's words were anything to go by, she got the impression that it was unlikely to be very friendly.

She looked down the corridor to Jonesy from where she sat in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs against the wall, finally giving up on trying to calm her fretting mind and approached her old colleague, leaning against the wall as she met his eyes firmly. "Something big's happened here, Jonesy."

He looked to her, his frustration with the faulty vending machine accidentally carrying over to her. "Yeah," he responded, "tell me something I don't know."

She glanced up the corridor, craning her neck just to make sure that no one was heading towards them and were likely to overhear. At the sight of an empty corridor, she lowered her voice. "I think that this might be an inside job."

"What?!" Jonesy snapped, spinning to face her sharply. He immediately regretted his tone, apologising in a mumbled voice. He knew Amy was an experienced and skilled officer, someone from which he stood to learn a lot. Yelling at her only served to reaffirm that cowboy image of him; he had learnt that from past experience. "What?" he repeated, this time mimicking Amy's hushed tones.

Amy sighed, letting her weight rest against the cold wall at her back. "It's just something Darryl Frost said…"

She didn't get the chance to finish before Jonesy hit her swiftly and lightly in the arm, nodding towards PJ and the Homicide detectives, who had emerged from the interview room and were now calling her name. As she headed down the corridor towards them, she could feel PJ plant a quick kiss on her cheek, a sign of reassurance. She knew that he had reached the same conclusions she had. Whatever way she looked at this, the answer was always the same. Bent coppers.

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The two burly men opposite looked at Amy coldly, their glares imposing. They made her feel ill at ease in the uncomfortable chair that she knew was reserved for the interviewees. They sat on the opposite side of the table, no pens or paper in sight and certainly no sign of turning on the tape recorder.

"I'm Detective Senior Sergeant Fitzroy," one – a man who was quite overweight with a thick mop of black hair that he had gelled down – introduced, before motioning vaguely towards his partner. "And this is Detective Sergeant Fields." He leant forward, his beady black eyes bearing harshly into her own. "You'd be Fox, right?"

She nodded uncomfortably, shifting her wary gaze from one to the other. She had been in their company for less than a minute and already they had brought out the same side of her that two and a half years with Melbourne Homicide had. The wary officer just trying to keep out of the way. "Yeah," she gulped, more acknowledging their question than answering it.

Fields – a man not quite as bulky as Fitzroy, but with balding blonde hair and a badly done comb over – sat back in his seat, folding his arms across his chest as he shared an almost smug look with his partner. "Tell us what you know, Fox."

His tone unnerved her terribly. She instantly could tell that neither cared less about this interview, adding weight to her theory that there were bent coppers involved. And she could be staring them down right at that second.

She drew in a deep breath, preparing herself for her explanation. She could remember Darryl Frost's words, words that were perhaps born of fear. "Senior Detective Hasham and I were at the hotel," Amy explained in as steady a voice as she could possibly manage, "when we were reunited with an old Mt. Thomas colleague – Senior Detective Evan Jones."

Fields and Fitzroy nodded, neither making any notes of what she had said. In fact, Amy could tell from the dull glint in their eyes that neither of their minds were even busy ticking over her words. There was something about these two that she instinctively couldn't trust. "And?" Fields finally asked, breaking the cold and uneasy silence that had fallen.

"Jones left to get some drinks," Amy continued, suddenly regretting her lack of information. Nothing she had to say would give her any leverage over these cops. "Almost as soon as he left the bar, the bomb went off and Senior Detective Hasham and I were knocked unconscious." She shrugged helplessly, the hot tears of panic threatening to return to her eyes. "That's all I've got."

Fitzroy looked over to Fields, nodding to his partner as he rose to his feet, ushering Amy out of the interview room. "Thanks for coming in," Fields told her in a strangely satisfied tone, closing the door almost as soon as Amy was out of the door. She stood in the corridor, clutching her bag protectively to her stomach. She could hear PJ and Jonesy heading towards her, motioning for her to leave with them.

Her interview with Fields and Fitzroy had been brief, but it had been plenty long enough for everything she had come to fear and detest about corrupt police officers – particularly Homicide detectives – to return to her sharply.

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Back in the motel room, their refuge from the disaster that was threatening to consume them whole, PJ sat back against the pillows of Amy's bed, his swollen and bandaged ankle resting on the softest pillow that Amy and Jonesy had managed to find. Jonesy was once again on the phone to Tess, reassuring her that everything was fine with a soft and soothing "I love you", while Amy sat across from PJ on the bed, her eyes low. PJ reached over, rubbing her arm with a gentle hand. She looked up to him, his blue eyes silently searching deep within her own.

"There's corruption involved here somewhere, Peej," she told him in a soft voice that Jonesy barely picked up from the kitchenette where he had just finished speaking to Tess. "I can feel it." PJ kept his hand on Amy's arm, rubbing it soothingly. Unsure of what else she could do, she turned to Jonesy before switching her gaze back to PJ. "Surely you two remember how much corruption is in the city."

PJ and Jonesy nodded in reluctant agreement, their minds clearly focused on past brushes with corruption. Amy looked from one to the other as suddenly her mobile phone burst into life at the table beside her bed. Her heart raced as she dived for it, trying to calm herself down at the sight of Mark's name on-screen. She looked up at the two males watching her, meeting their expectant stares. "It's Mark," she explained, raising the phone to her ear. She hadn't even had a chance to respond before Mark's voice could be clearly heard from the other end of the phone. Judging by the sounds of the phones ringing in the background, he was at the station.

"Amy!" Mark exclaimed, letting his head sink into his hand where he sat in his office. "Thank God! You've got no idea what's been going on down here, do you?"

Rubbing her temples tiredly, Amy shook her head. "No," she admittedly weakly, "I'm sure I don't."

"We've been on the phone to the officers up in Sydney, but no one's telling us anything. Half the town seems to think you're dead according to Chris," Mark continued, his voice overbearing in its concern. "We would too if Tess hadn't have called to let us know that Evan had rang."

She looked up to Jonesy standing nearby, a weak smile spreading across her face. "She was probably worried."

"Too right!" Mark snapped, suddenly regretting his harsh tones. He was worried and stressed and he was accidentally transferring that over to Amy when he really shouldn't. He softened his voice as best he could. "No one's telling us a bloody thing."

Amy forced a laugh, rolling her eyes. "Join the club," she told him dismally, "things are getting more suss around here by the second." She almost instantly wished she hadn't said that, she of all people should have realised what extents bent coppers could go to when they were trying to cover their tracks. Listening in on her phone conversations would be nothing to them. "Look," she explained, quickly changing the subject, "PJ and I are fine. He's sprained his ankle and I've burnt my cheek. We're going to be fine…all three of us. We'll see you when we get back to Mt. Thomas, okay?"

Mark nodded, leaning forward over his desk. "Any idea when that'll be?"

She just shook her head, sighing to herself. "When this whole mess is sorted out." Glancing up at the two detectives, she decided that talking to Mark for much longer could be a risky situation, especially if she was right about Fields, Fitzroy and Darryl Frost. "I'd better go," she explained, "bye."

---------------------------------------------------

Sitting back in his office, Mark nodded, returning Amy's farewell before near throwing the receiver back into its cradle. It was at that moment that – as if she had selected her entrance to be at the worst time for him – Piper Morris stormed into the station. He let his head sink forward onto the desk, banging it softly and repeatedly against the wood. Piper invited herself inside, closing the door behind her.

"Jacobs," she snapped coldly, in her usual tones that dripped of superiority. "What the hell has happened here?!"

"I don't know," Mark responded dismally, not raising his head from his desk, "I really don't know."

Piper folded her arms against her chest, waiting expectantly for more. Mark could sense her impatience, finally raising his head to meet her eyes weakly. "Look," he told her, "I don't know anything besides what the television stations do. I'd tell you if I knew, I would."

"Would you?" Piper snorted in disbelief. "Are you sure that this isn't just you changing the rules to suit yourself, like always?"

Mark could feel his blood boiling. He didn't know why Piper did that to him. There was once a time when they had gotten along like a house on fire. In the short time since her arrival, she had only managed to cement just how bad things had gotten between them. "I've never done that," he reminded her firmly. Piper stared at him, relenting slightly at the look in his eyes. He wasn't lying to her. "All I want is for all of this to be over," he pointed out, "I've got two detectives and an old colleague caught up in this situation and members back here who are too worried about them to be doing their jobs properly." He waited for Piper's reaction, which didn't come. He continued. "No one's telling us a damn thing and now one of our detectives seems to think that there's something 'suss' going on."

Piper thought through Mark's words, nodding to herself. Her stance softened slightly at the look of pure desperation in Mark's eyes. He began shaking his head, running tired hands across his face.

"I always thought that Senior Sergeant would be easy," Mark confessed quietly as Piper took the seat opposite, fixing him with a curious and almost disbelieving stare. "Everyone always made it look so easy…always told me I had what it takes. I've been doing this job now for over two months and everything's just gone wrong since. A member's dead, one member has been nearly killed at this police station and just about everything keeps turning to shit in my hands."

"No," Piper mumbled, shaking her head slightly. As much of a pain Mark Jacobs could be, he didn't deserve this.

"And," Mark finished, sighing dejectedly, "to top it all off, the only reason I was stationed to this town was to do a corrupt inspector's dirty work. I don't belong in this bloody office, doing this bloody job."

She shook her head, rising to her feet. She leant closer to Mark, so close that he could feel her breath wafting over his face. "Listen to yourself, Jacobs," she told him firmly, "you're in a situation when you need to take control. Stop sitting on your hands and feeling sorry for yourself, get out there and stop counting on someone else to do everything. It comes down to you now, not Tom Croydon or whatever his name was. I'm not your mother and I won't clean up after you."

As Piper moved to leave his office, Mark could feel words escaping his lips before commonsense and his mouth could come together to stop them. "Like you used to."

She froze, turning to shoot him an unpleasant glare. Finally, she just shrugged and left, leaving Mark sitting alone in his office, the boots that Tom Croydon had left behind once again feeling impossibly large to fill.

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Jonesy returned to the motel room from the vending machine down the hall, juggling three packets of chips in his hands as he tried to jump over Amy's bed to the table that held the remote control, switching the TV on before Amy or PJ had a chance to ask him what he was doing. He motioned to the television screen as it burst into life, directing the pair's attention to the figure onscreen.

It was none other than Detective Senior Sergeant Fitzroy, staring at them through the television screen in a sickening satisfied kind of way. Amy cringed at the grin on his face and the glowering in his eyes. Beside her on the bed, PJ tightened his hand around hers.

"So, I understand that you have made an arrest in the bombing investigation?" a news reporter asked from somewhere off screen, her voice, dripping with supposed compassion and understanding yet again making Amy certain that the television networks were only in it for the ratings.

Fitzroy nodded, glancing off to the side of the screen – to the unseen reporter, presumedly – before returning his stare to the camera. "Yes, we have," he explained, his voice sending shiver down Amy's spine as her eyes widened. "We have arrest two men of Middle Eastern appearance for murder and several counts of attempted murder. We have ascertained that this was a revenge attempt against the conference's organiser and have laid charges accordingly.

Unable to sit through the rest of the news report, Amy snatched the remote from Jonesy's hand, hitting the power button and sending the screen black instantly. PJ and Jonesy turned to face her, each surprised at the way Amy was reacting to this whole ordeal.

"They've arrested a stereotype," Amy told them, her voice blank just still tinged with frustration and anger. "They've gone and arrested just what the public and media wanted them to. They've arrested the stereotype."

"Maybe those guys they've arrested are the actual criminals behind this!" Jonesy suggested as Amy climbed to her feet, following closely by the limping PJ. "Stereotypes become stereotypes for a reason."

Amy turned back to face Jonesy, her eyes narrowed as they began to fill with tears of desperation. "And maybe pigs have white fluffy wings and have taken to the sky," she retorted sarcastically, before beginning to shake her head helplessly. "There's something major going on here, I can just feel it." She sighed shakily, unpleasant memories of her time in Homicide slowly beginning to flood back. "Fitzroy and Fields planted that bomb. They're the ones who killed those innocent coppers, not the poor guys they've arrested."

"Hang on," Jonesy responded, staring at Amy in confusion. "What would Fitzroy and Fields stand to gain from a bunch of coppers being blown to pieces?"

"They could jump in," PJ offered, hoping to diffuse what he could tell could become a very heated argument. Amy and Jonesy were both incredibly stubborn and neither knew when to give up. "You know, play hero."

Amy shook her head, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully. "I don't think so," she replied, staring off beyond Jonesy as her mind ticked over. "It's just something Darryl Frost said…I don't think that the coppers who were killed were ever the targets. I think they were after Detective Senior Sergeant Frost."


	45. Ep 9: The Big Smoke Pt5

**Part 5**

PJ and Jonesy shared an uncomfortable glance at the mention of Darryl Frost's name, both lowering their gaze. "Darryl Frost?" Jonesy asked quietly, switching his gaze between his two former colleagues. "Are you sure? Didn't you think he was bent just a little earlier?"

"I know I did," Amy explained with a nod, her eyes shining as she failed to meet PJ or Jonesy's eyes. "Maybe he was scared. I think they're after him for some reason and Frost was just trying to save his own backside."

"Maybe he thought that Fitzroy and Fields would be more likely to come after him if anyone can step forward with information that would interfere with the cover up," PJ suggested with a shrug, earning a thoughtful nod from Amy. "Or maybe he's just trying to keep us out of it."

Amy nodded again as she let PJ's words pass through her mind. Finally, she looked over to the two males, motioning to the door. "Shall we go see what Darryl Frost can tell us?"

---------------------------------------------------

Amy rapped on the door to Darryl Frost's motel room, glancing around the hallway distractedly while they awaited a response. She turned to meet PJ and Jonesy's concerned eyes when there was none. She knocked again, this time shouting as well. "Detective Senior Sergeant Frost?" she called through the door. "Are you there?"

Just as Amy rose her hand to knock again, the door opened, exposing a less than jubilant man staring at them warningly through the crack. "What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded of them coldly. "Are you trying to get yourselves killed?"

"We're just trying to work out what the hell's going on here," Amy explained, glancing back at PJ and Jonesy where they stood beside her, staring on as she spoke. "Detective Senior Sergeant Fitzroy was on the news a few minutes ago, apparently they've just arrested a couple of Middle Eastern men for the bombing."

"Yeah?" Darryl demanded bitterly, trying to close the door in Amy's face, only for PJ to quickly stick his foot between the frame and the door. "Good for Fitzroy. Now piss off, the three of you!"

PJ pushed the door open with his hand, fixing the older man with an expectant and kind stare. "Mate," he pointed out, "we're trying to help you here. We don't want to see innocent blokes go away for something they never did and two bent coppers walk away."

"Do you lot have a death wish or something?" Darryl asked, letting his gaze travel across the three officers before him. "If you guys would like to see your next birthdays, I strongly suggest you just get out of here now."

Jonesy shook his head, forcing the door open and inviting Amy and PJ to follow him inside. Darryl Frost could only stand aside and let them in, shutting the door behind him.

"What the hell did you do to make Fitzroy and Fields so angry with you that they'd be willing to blow up hundreds of other officers just to get at you?" Amy demanded, rounding on Darryl almost as soon as the door closed.

Darryl opened and closed his mouth several times, desperately searching for something to say that would satisfy the detectives before him, before finally settling on the truth. "I saw their stash once."

"Stash?" Amy asked, her eyes widening in horror. "Of drugs?"

"Of course of bloody drugs, what else do you think?!" Darryl replied as he sank back into his bed, rubbing at his temples as if it might somehow help clear his mind. "They've been trying to get rid of me ever since."

Jonesy just shook his head, his mind struggling to process what he was hearing. Even though he was now living and working with Melbourne, there was a huge divide between CI of a small station in a small suburb and the inner workings of Sydney Homicide. "Why keep such a big profile then?" he asked in confusion. "Why not just lie low?"

"Because surrounding myself with the media is all I can do to protect myself from them," Darryl explained quietly, looking up at them with desperate, pleading eyes. "The paparazzi are the only thing that scares a bent cop. They can get rid of anything or anyone else that stands in their way, but not the media. They're the only ones with the power to truly bring them down. If a prominent cop was killed, the media would be all over it in minutes."

PJ nodded in understanding as he glanced over to Amy and Jonesy, to see them both displaying their typical shows of deep thought. Amy was biting her bottom lip, while Jonesy was beginning to pace slightly.

"We need to go to ESD," Amy announced, retrieving her phone from her pocket. "This is too big for us."

"No bloody way!" Darryl snapped, suddenly springing into life as he dived for Amy's mobile. He snatched it from her hands, switching it off before tossing it back to her. She fumbled it in surprise. "Fitzroy and Fields are the heroes at the moment. All of Australia will think that they've just nabbed a couple of terrorists."

PJ looked over to Amy, his heart falling at the sight of the dejected expression on her face. She was really not liking all of this corruption that they had involved themselves in. "We have to do something," he pointed out hopefully, "we can't just let them get away with this. I know what the families of those dead coppers would be going through right now and it's a living hell!"

PJ's impassioned words sent a shiver of remembrance down Amy and Jonesy's spines as they each looked away, neither knowing quite what to say. It was obvious that Darryl Frost didn't know exactly what PJ had meant, but understood that he would do well not to ask.

"Bombers and drug dealers are dirty, low life scum that don't deserve to walk the same ground as us," PJ explained, his voice suddenly very quiet, "there is no bloody way I'm letting Fitzroy or Fields go so they can keep doing this."

Suddenly, the four detectives crowding the motel room jumped at the sound of the door creaking open, only to be met with the sight of two bulky men, both with guns trained on them.

"Oh, I don't think you're going to have a choice there, Hasham," Fitzroy told him as he approached PJ, pushing the barrel of his gun against the side of his head. PJ closed his eyes tightly as he could feel the terror running through his body. He was almost one hundred percent certain that he could feel Amy's terror too. He knew that he had once said that Amy was his last chance for a relationship, the last time that he could open his heart up to anyone, but he knew that the same could be said for Amy. If anything happened to him, her heart would be closed forever.

Fields crossed the room, wrapping an arm around Darryl's neck as he held his own gun to the detective's temple. "Should we just kill him now? Quick and fast?"

Fitzroy thought it over for a moment, before finally shaking his head. "Nah," he told his partner with a shake of his head as Jonesy and Amy watched on, terror keeping them motionless. Jonesy reached over finally, taking Amy's hand in his. He knew that it was cold comfort however, what she really wanted was for PJ to be the one holding her. "Let's torture the little piggies for a while first."

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PJ watched Amy through worried blue eyes as he winced involuntarily at the cold metal at his temple. It was impossible to tell just how much time had passed between when Fitzroy and Fields stormed the motel room with guns and the present. It felt as though it had been hours when in actual fact, it had probably only been several minutes.

Neither Fitzroy nor Fields had left their posts, while all that the hostages had done was sit down. Amy and Jonesy remained awkwardly close, his hand closed tightly around hers in a weak attempt of comfort. PJ could only watch from where he sat, gun at his head, as the woman he loved met his eyes fearfully. They were no strangers to hostage situations or sieges, but this felt different somehow. These were bent officers of a totally different calibre to Falcon-Price. This was the big league of corruption. Shooting another member – or four, for that matter – was nothing for them. Just another day at the office.

Fitzroy finally moved from where he had his gun at PJ's head, digging the barrel of his weapon into the centre of Darryl Frost's forehead. "You're a little media slut, you know that?" the corrupt officer explained as Fields relaxed his grip slightly on Darryl's neck, confident that their victim would be going nowhere. "Your little paparazzi friends can't save you now."

"They're gonna be all over this like a bad rash, Fitzroy," Darryl reminded him, a definite note of bitterness in his voice. "You kill four coppers; no self-respecting journalist in the country isn't going to want coverage."

PJ could still feel his breathing come in uneven as he looked across the room to Amy and Jonesy, silently asking them how they were coping. They didn't say a word in response, but he could tell that they were barely keeping it together. He knew that their lives were probably flashing back across their mind – PJ's certainly was.

"You think I give a crap what those journalists think?!" Fitzroy demanded, his eyes glinting. "They'll believe whatever they think will get every man and his dog with a television set watching. And if that happens to mean a well respected officer gone bad rounding up a few hundred detectives with the intention of blowing them all to kingdom come…"

Darryl just shook his head, tears of fear and anger welling in his eyes. "You're bloody bastards, the both of you. Bloody bastards."

"Oh," Fitzroy remarked with indignation, tightening his grip on his weapon. Fields returned his grip to a strong one, nearly cutting off Darryl's airways as he held him motionless. "I'd be watching what shit you let come out of your mouth next Frosty, unless you'd like a few bullets in your head sooner rather than later."

"It ends here." Darryl pointed out, his voice weak and strained, partly due to the stress of the situation and partly due to the arm wrapped threateningly tight around his throat. "You shoot any of us here today and it all comes out. You two go down for so many counts of murder, it could fill a phone book. And then there's the drugs..."

Darryl could have continued, but was never given the chance. Before another word left his lips, Fitzroy had fired his weapon, the bullet sending blood flying in all directions, splattering the walls. Fields released his grip, swearing loudly as he tried to mop blood from himself. "Jesus, you could have given me some warning, couldn't you?"

Amy pulled her hand free of Jonesy's as she covered her mouth in one swift movement, her breath coming in uneven gasps. Her green eyes widened in horror and disbelief at the sight before her – another good copper paying the price. Jonesy's mouth dropped open, his heart skipping several beats in his chest. PJ found his eyes widening, his heart giving a sickening lurch in his chest.

Fitzroy clipped Fields across the back of his head, perhaps in reprimand for his comment, before rounding on the three officers, whose fear he could physically feel. "So who wants to die first? Foxy, perhaps?" He stormed across the room, forcibly dragging Amy to her feet and pressing the barrel of his gun to her head. She flinched under his touch, trying desperately to keep the tears in her eyes from rolling down her cheeks. She couldn't. She closed her eyes momentarily, before turning her gaze to PJ, fixing him with a desperate and pleading expression. Fields stood behind; arms folded across his chest, his eyes slightly scornful at the lead Fitzroy had taken in this situation. Things were not playing out as he'd planned. Fitzroy leant into Amy's face as he rocked her back and forth teasingly, the motion only serving to further throw her breathing out of balance. She was close to great, gulping sobs. "So, tell me Foxy," Fitzroy teased with a smile, "which one's pants are you in?"

She swallowed loudly, closing her eyes tightly as quiet sobs of terror and fear began to overwhelm her. Her heart was pounding with an uncontrollable sense of dread. Despite Fitzroy giving her body a firm and impatient shake, she couldn't find the strength within her to reply to his question. Not when all she could think about was the end. The end of her life, her journey. And ultimately the end of PJ's heart.

"Answer me!" Fitzroy snapped, pushing his gun harder against her temple.

Amy could no longer keep her crying quiet. A loud sob escaped her lips as she lowered her head, streams of tears running down her cheeks and over the bandaged burn on her cheek. Her whole body shook with Fitzroy's powerful arms as the reality of the situation hit home. They were going to die here today, just more victims of two bent copper's rampage.

Jonesy had risen to his feet in instinct when Fitzroy had pulled Amy into his arms, while PJ simply remained frozen solid, his blue eyes clouding with tears of grief and utter disbelief. He and Amy had fought through more than a lot of people ever did in a relationship. This couldn't happen now, not when she had just started to build a life for herself. Not when she was just truly dealing with the abuse.

Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot ripped through the uneasy silence of the motel room that had been disturbed only by Amy's desperate sobs, sending PJ and Jonesy's hearts racing. Amy waited, expecting the pain to rip through her body at any second, brutally ending her journey, only for it to never come. She soon found herself crumpling to the floor under the overwhelming weight of Fitzroy, being pinned to the floor by his lifeless body.

Behind where Amy lay beneath Fitzroy's body, Fields stood, arms outstretched before him, his gun clutched in his hands tightly in the standard police grip. His eyes were narrow, his face full of the determination that had finally pushed him to pull the trigger on his partner.

Amy pushed herself up slowly, tentatively pulling herself out from underneath Fitzroy's arm. As the seconds ticked by and it became increasingly clear that Fields wasn't about to exterminate them just as he had Fitzroy, PJ scampered over, gently pulling her to shaky feet.

The silence hung over the motel room, before finally Fields lowered his weapon, motioning to the door. "Go," he instructed the detectives before him, "just bloody go before I change my mind."


	46. Ep 9: The Big Smoke Pt6

**Part 6**

Jonesy burst through the motel room door, taking Amy and PJ quite by surprise. He scampered across the room to the remote control, the coffee in the cups in his hands sloshing everywhere. He switched the television on, calling his old colleagues' attention to the situation onscreen. Fields was being led along roughly by who they could only guess to be Sydney's equivalent of Melbourne ESD. The news reader explained the situation in a deadpan voice.

"Detective Sergeant Fields was arrested over the bombing of the CI conference after the lawyer of murdered Detective Senior Sergeant Darryl Frost came forth with evidence against Fields and his partner, Detective Senior Sergeant Fitzroy."

PJ sat back, a disbelieving smile making its way across his face. "Well," he mumbled, more to himself than to Amy or Jonesy, "I guess that's what Darryl was talking about when he said it'd all come out."

"Yeah," Amy agreed quietly, biting her bottom lip as she stared at the screen distractedly.

The image onscreen changed from a very sedate Fields in the clutches of ESD to the newsreader, who was checking his notes on his desk. "Detective Sergeant Fields is expected to be dealt a lighter sentence for his crimes after it came to light that he shot his partner in order to save three detectives from Victoria that had been held hostage along with Detective Senior Sergeant Frost."

Jonesy looked to PJ and Amy, lowering the remote control in his hand. The pair sat on Amy's bed, their eyes wide and disbelieving. "Wow," was all Amy could manage, just shaking her head. "It's over."

PJ nodded, leaning back on the bed as he tilted his head back and let his eyes close thoughtfully. It had been so long since he had come into contact with big city corruption, since the Gaming Squad all those years ago, in fact. He'd forgotten just how big a mess the big guys could make when they were covering their own backsides. "Yeah," he conceded with a nod, "it is."

A strange silence hung among them. There was an odd sense of uneasiness deep within each of them. Even Jonesy, who had spent the last year in Melbourne and Amy, whose memories of Homicide were still fresh in her mind, could never have anticipated this. They still had that country-ness about them that Tom Croydon had ingrained long ago. He had been dead for over two months and yet the impact he had had on their lives would last for so much longer.

The uneasy silence was finally broken by the shrill ringing of Jonesy's phone. They each jumped out of instinct, before Jonesy reached into his pocket, smiling to them as broadly as he could manage. "That'd be Tess," he explained as he headed off into the kitchenette, leaving Amy and PJ behind.

He rose the phone to his ear without checking who it was that had called him, turning on a teasing and flirtatious voice in the hopes that it might serve to soothe his no doubt frazzled wife. "Aw, Tessy," he teased with a laugh, only to instantly regret it when the person on the other end of the line spoke.

"I'm not Tess," Alex Kirby's voice told him quietly, lacking all of the bright bravado that Jonesy had long known him for.

Jonesy's face fell, his eyes showing all of the embarrassment of having accidentally mistaken the man that had once been his closest friend for his wife. "Oh," he mumbled, trying to keep the blush from his face, "Alex. Mate, what's up?"

"Three detectives from Victoria," Alex explained, the seriousness and lack of brightness in his tones not missing Jonesy whatsoever. "That wouldn't have been you, Amy and PJ by any chance, would it?"

Laughing to himself at this, Jonesy leant back against the bench of the kitchenette, craning his neck to see Amy and PJ talking quietly back on the bed. "Mate," he said weakly, "you wouldn't believe me if I told you what's being going down up here over the last twenty four hours…"

---------------------------------------------------

Amy awoke from a fitful sleep filled with explosions and fire and guns at her head to find that night had well and truly fallen over the city of Sydney. She shifted position from where she lay, facing Jonesy as he once again slept on the floor, his back to her with a motel pillow stuffed under his head. She turned to face PJ where he lay on his trundle bed, the blankets kicked away and his bandaged and swollen ankle resting on a spare pillow. His wise blue eyes stared ahead vacantly at the ceiling, his arm crooked back behind his head.

She pulled herself free of the blankets, managing to free one from the end of her bed and gently threw it over Jonesy where he slept on the floor. PJ pushed himself up slightly as Amy headed round to his trundle bed, laying herself down beside him so that their bodies were the closest they'd ever been. She inched across the thin, uncomfortable mattress, smiling at him weakly. She propped herself up on her arm as he shuffled over to make room. "You can't sleep either, then," she observed quietly, earning a silent nod from PJ in reply. She sighed, her eyes becoming misty and filling with intense fear as she spoke. "I thought I was going to die, PJ," she confessed in a shaky voice, "I really thought that Fitzroy was going to kill me. I…I've had guns on me before, I've had Steven Prior attack me, but it doesn't get any easier."

PJ just shook his head, propping himself up on his arm to mirror Amy's position. "I'd be surprised if you said it did," he told her softly, his voice attaining that soothing, kind and wise quality that embodied everything she truly adored in him. Small tears rolled down her cheeks, perhaps a reaction to the stress of the last day. He reached out a hand, catching a tear on his finger. "Hey," he soothed gently, his eyes meeting her own, "it's okay now. They're not going to hurt anyone ever again. You're okay; we all got out of there."

"I know," she admitted, trying desperately to hold back sobs. The last thing they needed right now was for Jonesy to wake up and find them in their less than professional position, although she doubted that Jonesy, even in one of his thicker moments, could possibly have not worked out the true nature of their relationship given the events of the last twenty-four hours. "It's just…" She shook her head, her mind drifting back unpleasantly to Homicide. "I've seen too much corruption. I've seen what it does. Lisa, Tom, Susie…" She trailed off, the memories becoming too powerful.

PJ nodded, pulling Amy closer into his arms gently. They lay together on the trundle bed, both trying to dismiss the images of death and destruction from their minds. Finally Amy pulled away, wiping at her eyes uselessly with her hand. "You know," she began quietly, changing the subject, "I just realised that I know nothing about you." He stared at her inquisitively, eyes narrowing at Amy's comment. "I mean," she continued quickly at the expression on PJ's face, "you know just about everything about me and my life and I know nothing about yours."

"You've only ever had to ask," PJ told her as he shifted his position, wincing as he adjusted his ankle on the pillow at the foot of the bed. "What do you want to know?"

She just shrugged; she'd never really thought about what it was she would ask PJ Hasham given the opportunity. "I don't know," she admittedly quietly, "everything, I suppose. Everything you'd want to tell me, anyway."

He sighed thoughtfully, sinking back slightly into the pillow. Her met her gaze slowly, desperately trying to sort his life into words that would make any sense to Amy. "I grew up in a Lebanese grocery," he began, staring off into space as his mind drifted back. "My Mum ran it basically, my sisters and I helped out when we could. My Dad was a business man who often travelled over to Lebanon for work." PJ gave a small chuckle as his eyes attained a nostalgic, misty quality. "I remember when we were little, he'd often bring back presents for us. My sisters always got these beautiful little things while I always got some useless piece of junk. I wish I knew where I'd put them all now, I really do."

Amy's eyes narrowed in curiosity as she listened to PJ's words with intent curiosity. She shifted her position absentmindedly as she began to bite her bottom lip in that distant, far away way she always did. She could somehow picture a much younger PJ in her mind, it brought the slightest hint of a smile to her face.

"Just before I headed off to uni," PJ continued, his voice suddenly taking on a hint of sadness, "my Dad headed over to Lebanon for work. We thought nothing of it at the time; he'd done it a hundred times before. We didn't think anything could happen. Not to our Dad. He was indestructible."

"Yeah," Amy mumbled to herself, looking away with a forlorn nod, "I know the feeling."

PJ forced a weak smile, tears long cried returning to his eyes. "Some bastard decided to take a gun into the main street of Beirut and opened fire." He shrugged, sighing dejectedly. "He didn't care who he killed. When he shot my Dad, he didn't care about me or my Mum back home. He didn't know and didn't care."

Amy's eyes widened as PJ spoke, misty tears clouding her vision. She began shaking her head in disbelief – she, like most, had always detached herself from events like those. Even as a copper and all the things she'd seen, it was impossible to prepare herself for these sorts of horrors.

"That's when I decided to be a copper, I guess," PJ shrugged, blinking back the tears into the dark past from which they had arisen. "I wanted to help people, people who were feeling lost and alone like we did. Mum wouldn't have let me join the army in my wildest dreams and I didn't have the marks for a medical career. I suppose the police force was the next logical option. And I'd always liked solving puzzles."

She nodded, shuffling slightly closer to him as Jonesy continued to sleep on the other side of her bed as PJ continued to speak. "My Sergeant was the kind of guy who liked to throw you in the deep end, figured you'd either sink or swim I suppose," he explained, a quiet laugh bringing a smile across his face. "I stayed at that station until I got an offer from the detectives in the real big city. I ended up in Gaming Squad, cocky as anything and still thinking that I could save the world and still get the girl at the end of the day."

Amy couldn't restrain a chuckle at PJ's words, only making his smile broaden. He felt more at ease now that she was smiling. He always felt so much more comfortable when Amy Fox was looking at him with a smile on her face.

"I'd been with the coppers for about five years by then," he explained, choosing his words carefully as the memories flooded back, "but I still didn't think that corruption was ever going to involve me in any way. Then I got caught up a corrupt squad. Monica Draper was there too, she was straight as anything and saw what was going on like me, but she went to ESD before I did." He sighed heavily, wincing as he shifted his ankle on the pillow at the foot of the bed. "She ended up a toecutter, half the squad was sacked and I was sent off to the middle of nowhere because they couldn't work out what I was either way."

"Corruption…" Amy mused to herself, biting her bottom lip thoughtfully as her smile faded away. PJ nodded.

"I suppose in hindsight, Mt. Thomas wasn't such a bad thing," he told her as a hint of a smile returned to his features. "It's where I met Maggie. And Jo. And you." He leant across, pressing his lips gently against hers, instantly softening her deep and thoughtful expression into one of pleasure. "You mean so much to me, Amy," he said, eyes shining so that Amy could tell that every single word was nothing but the absolute truth. "You scared me shitless in there today. I never wanted to fall for you, never wanted to get that close to anyone again after Jo died." He paused, reaching out a hand to brush strands of messy brown hair from Amy's cheek. "But I'd forgotten just how good it feels to have someone so deep in your heart that you can feel them deep inside you. I'd forgotten how strong the heart can be when it knows what it wants."

She leant in, snuggling deeper into his chest, something strange rushing inside her heart. One look at PJ as he let his lips connect with hers yet again confirmed what she knew deep inside. There, in that motel room in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, the nature of their relationship was about to become far more intimate than it had ever been before. They were both about to take another step to heal the hurt that had formed deep within each of their hearts long ago.


	47. Ep 10: At Risk Pt1

**Episode 10: "At Risk"**

**Summary: **_Joss is paid an unpleasant visit from the past when an ex-girlfriend reveals that she may have placed Joss and Kelly's futures in jeopardy. The Heelers are forced to deal with a couple who are squabbling following the wife's unexpected illness._

**Part 1**

Joss drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, smiling to himself as the hot late February sun beat in through the windscreen of the patrol car, sending a warm tingle through his hands. In the car beside him sat Kari – much to his dismay, Mark had decided to send Kari out for the day. Get to know the community, he had said. Aside from Mark's logic, Joss also got the feeling that he wanted Kari out from under Alex's feet. Their exams were coming up very soon and without Susie at his side helping him with his studying, Alex wasn't dealing with it very well.

It had been a little less than a month since the nightmarish bombings up in Sydney that had quickly enveloped Amy, PJ and Jonesy into life-threatening danger, but things had returned to normal. Jonesy was back with Tess and little Evan in Melbourne and Amy and PJ had even managed to make peace with Alex. And he had to admit, things with Kelly were going pretty darn good too.

He shot a fleeting glance over to Kari beside him, raising an eyebrow. "So," he began, continuing to tap his fingers as he rounded a corner, "are you Chinese or something?"

Kari looked to him pointedly, scoffing loudly in response to his question. She rolled her eyes, laughing slightly. "Do I look Chinese to you?" she asked him. Seeing Joss' slightly uneasy expression, she let her lips twist into a bright smile. "Nah," she explained, "I'm Japanese. My parents moved over here when I was a few months old." She eyed Joss up and down, laughing to herself. "So, are you Spanish or something?"

Joss couldn't hide a laugh at Kari's question, shaking his head. "Nah, do I look Spanish to you?" he replied, mimicking her tone of voice. "I'm Italian."

"Oh," Kari mumbled in reply, flashing him a cheeky smile, "an Italian stallion. I'll have to keep an eye on you." She winked at him, making him feel quite uncomfortable, until he noticed the way she smiled at him. She was joking with him.

He pulled the patrol car to a slow stop outside an average sized weatherboard house in an average Mt. Thomas street, where a man no older than thirty was dragging random items from inside the house and throwing them out onto the footpath, yelling at the younger woman nearby who was desperately trying to gather the belongings up into her arms, crying in response. Joss and Kari climbed out of the car, approaching the pair. Joss held out a hand as a deterrent to the man, who was about to throw a rather nice and no doubt expensive vase to the ground where it would have shattered into a million pieces. "Hey, hey!" he snapped. "Put the vase down!" He waited there with Kari watching on from behind his shoulder as the man lowered the vase, finally setting it back on the lawn behind him. "Thank you." Joss told him, lowering his hand. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Oh, Joss!"

He spun in the direction of the voice that had called his name, only to be met with a sight he had hoped he'd never have to see again as long as he lived. The young woman had let her belongings fall to the ground racing over to wrap her slender arms around his neck. He grabbed her, pushing the rather frail 25-year-old away, looking her up and down in disbelief. She looked so different, so much less like the image of her that he had in his head. She was so much skinnier and her blonde curls seemed to lack the life that he had once loved about them. But she was still undeniably the same woman.

"Fiona," he mumbled, shaking his head as she quickly retrieved the items she had dropped, pushing strands of lifeless hair back from her face. "What the hell is going on?"

Kari's eyes widened in confusion as she switched her gaze from Joss, to Fiona to the fuming man nearby, shaking her head. "Joss," she demanded, causing him to spin in her direction. "What the hell is going on?" she asked, mirroring the same question that Joss had asked himself twice in the last minute.

He gave a heavy sigh, roughly grabbing the man's shoulders to drag him over to the patrol car. "You're coming down to the station," he told him, desperately trying to seem professional when his mind was going around and around in his head.

-----------------------------------------

Kari watched in doubt as Joss almost physically forced the man into the interview room, closing the door to leave him in there to stew for a bit. She just shook her head, folding her arms across her chest. He paused, their eyes meeting momentarily. "I'm going to go speak to Fiona," he explained quietly, shuffling up the corridor to the passive interview room that he had invited Fiona to take a seat in. "Get her perspective on this whole thing."

She watched him go, staring after him in confusion. "How do you know her?" she asked in curiosity. A copper knowing the people they dealt with was one thing; a copper acting the way Joss had with Fiona was a complete other.

He just shook his head, continuing down the corridor. "I just know her."

-----------------------------------------

Joss paused as he stood in the doorway to the passive interview room, watching through narrowed eyes as Fiona held her coffee cup with frail and shaking hands. It had been years since he'd seen her, but he whatever the bond was that they'd once shared was still there. He knew she was scared half to death by her husband, Andrew Harrison. And with good reason, from the display he'd seen today.

"Oh, Joss!" Fiona exclaimed, spinning to him in surprise as she finally realised that he was watching her. She gently sat the coffee cup back on the table and jumped to her feet, racing over to pull him into a hug, only for him to move away quickly. She stepped back, eyes lowered.

He regarded her coolly, the hatred he had formed against the woman before him near crumbling. "What the hell was going on there, Fiona?" he asked in as a detached voice as he could possibly manage.

She shrugged, tears filling her eyes as she reached out for him again, only to be once again met with the cold shoulder. "Andy's throwing me out of the house," she confessed quietly. "He got angry and starting yelling at me."

"Why?" Joss demanded, a little too harshly for his liking. He folded his arms across his chest, trying to keep himself composed.

Fiona was nearly crying as she spoke, desperately trying to brush tears away. "I don't know!" she sobbed as she returned to her coffee cup. "He just exploded for no reason! Why the hell should I know?!"

Joss sighed, staring distractedly past Fiona as he tried to work out what exactly to do. Fiona stared at him from her seat, eyes pleading with him in that way they used to. "I'm scared of him," she told Joss in barely a whisper. His eyes widened slightly at Fiona's words. "If he goes free, I don't know what he'll do to me."

As much as all his commonsense and logic were telling him to leave the case alone – hand it over to Kari and let her run it because he was simply too involved and couldn't trust Fiona at all – he couldn't find it within himself to act upon it. He simply nodded in response to Fiona's pleading words. "He won't hurt you," he promised quietly. "I swear."

-----------------------------------------

Joss stormed into the aggressive interview room where Andrew Harrison sat, wringing his hands on the table top. Kari followed her younger colleague inside, fixing him with a critical stare. She knew she was more than capable of becoming too emotionally involved in cases, but this was just ridiculous.

"So," Joss snapped, folding his arms as he rounded on Andrew, regarding him coldly. "Give me a good reason why I shouldn't just charge you right now."

Andrew began shaking his head, staring up and Joss in bemusement. "What?" he demanded in shock. "Charge me? What the hell with?"

Kari's eyes narrowed as Joss leant forward so that his face was centimetres away from Andrew's. "You've put the fear of God into that girl!" Joss told him, his voice still just as loud as it had been before. "She's scared half to death of you!"

"She was half to death before I did anything to her, trust me," Andrew mumbled in response, leaning back in his chair. Joss opened his mouth to speak, only for a firm hand on his shoulder to stop him. He pulled away at Kari's touch, running a hand back through his hair as he backed away.

"What do you mean?" Kari asked quietly, staring at Andrew in curiosity.

Andrew fixed her with impatient eyes, giving them a careless roll. "She's just a little slut, isn't she?" he explained in angry tones.

"Please refrain from using that sort of language in this police station, thanks," Kari told him, shooting Andrew an annoyed stare. The guy seemed to have little respect for his wife and everything he did and said only seemed to reaffirm this.

"That's what she is, isn't it?" Andrew replied coldly, switching his glance from Kari's disgusted stare to where Joss was leaning against the wall opposite, arms folded against his chest. "The little bitch was sleeping around and now I've got to pay the bloody price."

Kari's eyes widened slowly as she stared at Andrew. "How do you know for sure that Fiona was having an affair?"

"Affair?" Andrew scoffed, pounding his fists against the table as he jumped to his feet. "Is that what you call it now?"

"How do you know?" Kari repeated, shaking her head slowly. "Maybe you've got it all wrong…"

Andrew shook his head, angry tears finding their way to his furious eyes. He flopped back into his chair, combing strands of blonde hair back from his eyes with an almost shaking hand. "Because I found the bloody medical tests," he replied, his voice suddenly taking a very quiet and downtrodden quality.

"She's pregnant?" Joss asked, suddenly piping up from where he stood, leaning back against the wall.

"I wish!" Andrew snapped in reply, burying his face in his hands momentarily, the one action instantly telling Kari and Joss that he was a man drowning in everything around him. "God, I only wish it was that simple."

"What then?" Joss asked quietly, his mind working at overtime. Suddenly, Fiona was beginning look a lot less like the victim in this case.

Andrew finally looked up from his hands, his eyes shining. "She's got AIDS," he told them in a voice that was scarcely more than a whisper. "She's had it since before we even met and she never bloody told me. It'd be a miracle if I don't have it."

Joss could feel his whole body freeze like ice. His heart rose up in his chest, forming a horrible lump in his throat that wouldn't budge. He suddenly felt quite ill. Finally, everything seemed to return to him as he stormed out of the interview room, slamming the door loudly behind him as he stomped up the corridor to where Fiona was waiting in the passive interview room.

She jumped to her feet as he entered, reaching out to him, only to be pushed away roughly. Joss pointed an accusing finger at her, his eyes glowering. "What the hell did you think you were playing at, not telling me?!"

"Joss!" Fiona gasped as she remained where she stood, not daring to approach the livid man before her. "I don't know what you're talking about…"

"Yes you bloody do!" Joss snapped in reply, motioning vaguely towards the aggressive interview room with his hand. "You've AIDS and you never thought I might like to know!"

She shook her head, eyes welling with tears. "But I don't."

"Then why the hell does your husband think you do?!"

"I don't have AIDS," Fiona insisted quietly, only just daring to meet Joss' fuming eyes. "I'm HIV-positive, there's a difference!"

Joss laughed bitterly to himself, looking away as he tried to put everything in perspective. Nothing was working. "Does it matter?" he replied, regarding Fiona coldly. "It all ends up in the same place anyway. So tell me, was this before, during or after our relationship?"

Fiona just shook her head again, waving her arms around in a wild gesture as she struggled to find the words. "I don't know," she finally told him with a helpless shrug. "The tests weren't that good. They could only give me a vague timeframe. About 2002."

"While you were with me," he added quietly, unable to hold back the desperate tears welling in his eyes. His thoughts had travelled away from what this could mean for himself and were now focused on what it would mean for Kelly. She was the innocent victim in all of this. "What's the chance of me having it?"

She just shrugged again, lowering her head. "I don't know," she repeated quietly. "It could have been any of them. I don't know which one."

Joss sighed, massaging his eyes in a desperate attempt to clear his mind. "So I could have it," he mused, more for his sake than Fiona's. "And if I've got it, so could every other girl I've been with since." Kelly suddenly jumped into the forefront of his mind again, his beautiful, bright sunshine Kelly. The anger rose within him again as he stormed to the door, fixing Fiona with a furious stare. "Thank you, Fiona," he yelled at her, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Thank you very bloody much for screwing up my life!"


	48. Ep 10: At Risk Pt2

**Part 2**

Joss stood alone outside the Mt. Thomas police station, letting the warm summer breeze blow across his face and through his hair. He closed his eyes to the wind as he leant against the familiar building at his back, trying desperately to keep the tears of frustration and intense fear from building up in his eyes. He'd never before even begun to imagine what it would be like to know that something is wrong with you, something so wrong that it could be the end. And now he did, it scared the living daylights out of him.

Kari would be wondering where he was soon. He'd left her in the middle of a case he was personally wrapped up in, of course she'd come. He didn't know what to say to her, though, when she did.

Kelly was what worried him most, though. If he had it, then surely Kelly did too. He'd unknowingly put her life in grave danger all because Fiona couldn't resist the temptation to cheat on him all those years before. It all seemed too unfair – one woman cheated and now a lot of innocent people were paying the price.

Another figure jumped into the forefront of his mind. Faye Tudor. God, it had been years since they'd last seen each other or even thought of each other, but she was stuck in this horrible mess too.

He suddenly leapt to attention, digging through the pockets of his dark police uniform pants for his car keys. As he walked painfully slow across the car park – deliberately taking as long as he possibly could – he realised that facing Faye Tudor was the easier option than facing Kelly.

---------------------------------------------

He sat behind the wheel of his car, staring across the street to the house that seemed to blend in perfectly with its neighbours on what was essentially an ordinary Mt. Thomas street. Outside on the front veranda, a woman in her forties sat, leafing through the latest issue of _That's Life_ with vague interest. She didn't glance up until Joss had climbed out from his car, letting the door slam shut behind him. The noise caught her attention, causing her to jump to her feet in horror.

"Joss?" Faye Tudor demanded, the man approaching her somehow looking far older than the young Constable she remembered. She tossed her magazine aside, looking at him up and down through wide eyes. "What on earth are you doing here? I haven't seen you since…"

He grabbed her wrists, trying to usher her back inside. "We need to talk," he told her as she pulled herself free and stood her ground.

"Talk about what?" she asked, the disbelief and almost anger giving way to utter confusion. She shook her head, narrowing her eyes as the shock wore away. "Joss, what's this all about?"

He shuffled his feet awkwardly, looking away ashamedly. He didn't think he could bear to see her face when he said it. He mumbled something under his breath, before looking up to see her reaction. She hadn't heard him.

"What?" she asked him, shaking her head again. "I didn't hear a word you just said."

Joss turned away, running a hand back through his hair as he closed his eyes to the warm sunlight running over his face. Normally, that sort of sunshine would make him feel so alive. Now, it did nothing of the sort. "I think I might be HIV-positive, alright?!" he snapped, a little too sharply for what he really would have liked.

Faye's eyes widened in horror at Joss' revelation. She stared at him with a horrible mixture of pity and disgust in her eyes. "How long have you had it?"

He passed a hand across his eyes, desperately trying to find a way to tell her that wouldn't result in an even more uncomfortable situation, if that was at all possible. "Years," he told her quietly, with a dismal shrug. "My girlfriend was cheating on me and she has it, I don't know whether or not I've even got it."

Joss' words sent flames of fierce anger and hatred through Faye's expression. She brought a hand sharply against Joss' cheek, leaving a large red imprint of where it had struck. "You bastard!" she screamed, tears filling her eyes. "Do you have any idea what you've done?!"

He opened his mouth to speak, perhaps to try to find some sort of excuse for what had happened, but words failed him. Very clearly fed up with the whole situation, Faye turned on her heel and stormed inside, slamming the front door loudly behind her. As the flyscreen swung shut, Joss could feel a horrible, choking lump form in his throat. What would happen when he told Kelly?

---------------------------------------------

Kari was waiting for him by the time he returned to the station, glaring at him expectantly from behind the charge counter. "Where the hell did you go?" she snapped, following him along the corridor as he headed for the mess room to try to cool off before speaking to Kelly.

He almost had to bite down hard on his tongue to stop himself from telling Kari the truth. Even when she was angry, Kari still made you want to trust her. It must be something that she picked up in Drover's Creek, Joss reflected numbly. "Out," he answered simply, slamming the mess room door behind him, only for Kari to stop it with her hand. He rounded on her, meeting her inquisitive and concerned dark eyes. He wasn't getting out of this that easily. He could feel his resolve crumbling. "It's a mess," he told her as his voice broke in his throat. "It's all a bloody mess."

She narrowed her eyes, closing the door quietly behind her and approaching him slowly. "What is?"

"Everything," Joss answered, leaning back against the lockers. He hid his face in his hand, closing his eyes tightly in a failed attempt to pretend that it all wasn't happening. "She's given it to me, hasn't she?"

Kari continued to stare on at Joss in confusion, before sudden realisation set in. She nodded, her expression growing blank. "Oh," she mumbled, looking away from Joss' eyes just as he did the same to her. "Are you sure?"

He nodded, his expression becoming more and more hopeless as the seconds ticked by. "About as sure as I can be," he replied quietly. "She was sleeping around while we were dating years ago. She was probably still sleeping around when we broke up. She would have brought it into the relationship from one of the other guys she was seeing."

Silence hung over the mess room, before finally Joss met Kari's eyes again, trying to retain whatever little dignity he had left. "If I've got it," he began, his voice slow as he worked through what he was saying in his head, "then I'm going to die. And so is anyone else I've been in a relationship with since. Even…" He trailed off, suddenly realising where he was taking the conversation. He was taking it to Kelly and the horrible, haunting guilt of what he had unknowingly brought her into. "It doesn't matter."

He pushed past Kari, disappearing out into the main station while she remained alone in the mess room, her face still devoid of emotion. Joss had gotten one thing right – this was a mess.

---------------------------------------------

Kelly looked up from her computer as Joss passed, his head low and his face grave. She reached out to him, grabbing hold of his hand. The touch didn't carry the usual, loving sensation though. It was cold and detached. He pulled away from her, storming away despite her calls for him echoing through the muster room.

She finally rose to her feet, heading into the CI office where Amy and PJ were working away at the station laptop, the cheerful expressions on their faces telling Kelly that they were doing very little 'work' at all. They looked up to her as she entered, closing the door quietly behind her. She leant back against it, the concern evident in her features. It quickly closed Amy and PJ's discussion of dinner.

"What's up, Kel?" PJ asked, rising from his chair and perching himself on the corner of his desk. Amy leant forward over hers, her expressing becoming deadly serious.

Kelly glanced back out to the muster room, her expression one of sadness and confusion. "There's something wrong with Joss."

"Like what?" PJ queried, sharing a brief glance with Amy as he sat back on his desk. He regarded Kelly with curiosity and a look of understanding.

She shrugged, her eyes becoming distant and faraway as she thought over the coldness of their skin touching just moments before. Just one touch had unnerved her greatly. "He seems…angry. Cold, you know."

PJ nodded, sharing a brief glance with Amy. She nodded discreetly, silently telling him what to do. He climbed to his feet, giving Kelly's shoulder a kind squeeze as he passed. "I'll go have a chat with him then, hey?" he told her, letting the door swing closed quietly behind him. The blind rattled momentarily as Kelly looked back to Amy, forcing a smile.

"I'm overeating, aren't I?" she asked, rolling her eyes with a weak smile at Amy. Amy shook her head, sitting back in her seat and smiling at Kelly with her best reassuring expression on her face.

"Nah," she replied, her voice suddenly attaining a very sad tone, "I'm worried about everyone these days." She sighed, beginning to bite her bottom lip as she looked out to the empty muster room and the messy desks within it. "We're all under pressure and I'm worried that sooner or later, all the shit's really going to hit the fan."

---------------------------------------------

PJ headed down the corridor of the station, only to be met with the closed door of the mess room. He rose a hand to it, knocking loudly, and waited for a response. He didn't have to wait too long.

"Just bugger off."

PJ sighed sadly, knocking again as he leant against the door, the cool surface making contact with his left temple. "Joss, mate," he called in a soothing and friendly voice, "it's PJ. Can I come in?"

He waited outside the mess room until the door opened, just about causing him to topple over on top of the young Constable standing in the doorway with a pained and stressed expression on his face. "What do you want?"

"Kel came in to speak to Amy and me," PJ explained quietly, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure that no one was sneaking up behind him to listen in, "she seemed worried about you. Come on, mate. What's going on?"

Joss opened his mouth to make up any excuse – any excuse – but then conceded defeat when nothing reasonable came to mind. He shrugged, ushering PJ through before fixing him with an utterly hopeless expression. PJ could see the darkness in Joss' eyes, the shame and guilt running through his features. He approached his younger colleague, only for Joss to finally snap.

The Constable sank to the floor of the mess room, burying his face in his hand. "I really screwed this time," he confessed in angry and resentful tones. "I've stuffed everything up and I can't bloody fix it."

PJ's eyes narrowed in sympathy and confusion as he joined Joss on the floor, crossing his legs underneath him. He looked over to Joss, his mind running through his colleague's distress. "What happened?"

Joss finally rose his head from his hand, exposing a serious expression that PJ wished he'd never have to see on Joss' face again. "I'm going to die," he admittedly quietly, barely about to meet PJ's eyes, yet somehow unable to tear his gaze away. "I played Romeo to the wrong girl and now I've got HIV."

At Joss' words, PJ's eyes widened slightly as understanding passed through his features. He nodded, still not breaking eye contact with him. Unpleasant memories returned, memories that he would have thought were long buried.

The young Constable beside him sighed, shrugging his shoulders dismally. "See," he mumbled as he buried his head again in his hand, pulling his knees closer to his chest, "I told you I was stuffed."


	49. Ep 10: At Risk Pt3

**Part 3**

_Lyrics in this part are from "Blow Up The Pokies" by The Whitlams._

PJ sat back against the lockers, wringing his hands together in his lap while he desperately sought out a way to appeal to Joss in his time of need. He could see that Joss was obviously being pushed to breaking point by this situation and understandably so. Joss was still sitting beside him, head hanging back against the locker door at his back.

_And I wish I, wish I knew the right words_

_To make you feel better_

Finally, PJ decided to break the uneasy silence. "Are you sure?" he asked quietly, letting sympathetic and thoughtful blue eyes connect with Joss'. "Maybe you could be wrong – it's not as easy to get it as you'd think."

Joss nodded, passing a hand back through his short dark hair, if only to stop it from shaking with anger and fear. "I know how you can get it, PJ," he mumbled, breaking eye contact with the detective momentarily, before PJ grabbed his arm and forced Joss to meet his gaze once more.

"I thought I was HIV-positive once," PJ confessed, leaning closer to Joss as he lowered his voice to scarcely more than a whisper. The pure honesty in PJ's eyes told Joss that he wasn't just telling him what he wanted to hear – this was the truth. "It was nearly ten years ago," he continued, narrowing his eyes as his mind drifted back. "I'd rescued some guy from a car crash when I cut my hand on the window. Our bloods mixed."

The younger man's eyes widened in surprise at PJ's confession, swearing quietly in disbelief under his breath. "Crap," he breathed quietly.

"Then, a nurse approached me a while later. Said she'd gotten HIV from treating the guy and that he was a junkie." PJ sighed, the sense of fear long forgotten rising within him. He wondered if it would ever go away. "I was scared, Joss. Really scared. Not only could I have been HIV-positive, but I could have given it to the woman I loved."

Joss' blinked in shock at PJ's words, a sudden sense of warmth spreading through him. He didn't feel so alone anymore. "What happened next?" he inquired in hushed tones.

PJ sighed again, removing his hand from Joss' arm. "It turned out that the nurse had actually gotten it from a guy she was having an affair with, not treating the same guy I saved. I got a test done and it came back negative. Look, you might not be HIV-positive. Have you seen Sophie yet, gotten a test done?"

"It's a little different, PJ," Joss mumbled as he shifted his position against the lockers uneasily. "It'd be a miracle if I don't have it."

Joss climbed to his feet, heading shakily over to the sink. He braced himself against it, letting his head hang down as he tried to put everything into some sort of perspective. It wasn't working in the slightest.

"You know," PJ called after him, not moving from his post against the lockers as his stare became more and more sympathetic, "that's exactly what I told Tom Croydon nearly ten years ago."

Tears found their way into Joss' eyes and slowly down his cheeks, despite his best attempts to blink them away. He mopped at his face with the back of his hand, but PJ had already seen the tears. The older man crossed the mess room cautiously, grabbing Joss' shoulder in a silent sign of solidarity. "You'll be alright, mate," he soothed quietly, giving the shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Just get yourself tested. There's no point in torturing yourself if you're negative. Wait until the test results come back, then worry about it, okay?"

Joss nodded, pulling away from PJ's hand. PJ stared at him worriedly, his hand still grasping out into space as though it had been burned. "I'll be right," Joss mumbled, glaring back to PJ for less than a second. "Just go."

Nodding to himself, PJ left, closing the mess room door quietly behind him as he headed back to his office, while Joss grabbed the nearest solid object – one of Tom's old Boss mugs – and tossed it back against the lockers. It shattered into tiny pieces scattered across the floor.

------------------------------------------------

Kelly lay on her bed at the Imperial Hotel, leafing through an old copy of _Dolly_ distractedly as she tried to stop her mind from wandering to Joss and what was wrong with him. PJ had emerged from the mess room, only to warn her that Joss could do with some space. What he hadn't told her was how much space or why.

She tossed the magazine aside, finally giving up on distracting herself with what she knew was total rubbish, and headed over to the window, parting the curtain gently with the back of her hand to look out into the dark Mt. Thomas night. Stars shone overhead, along with a large, round moon. The sight brought a little hint of a smile to Kelly's face as she silently made a wish upon the brightest star that caught her eye.

A knock at the door brought her crashing back to reality, causing her to spin towards it in surprise. She stared at it momentarily as she calmed her racing heart and pushed a strand of wavy blonde locks back behind her ear.

"Kel?" an unusually quiet and subdued Joss called from beyond the wooden door where he stood out in the hallway. "Can I come in?"

Kelly nodded, bounding over to the door and nearly pulling it off its hinges as she opened it for her lover. Joss forced the weakest of smiles, inviting himself inside and sitting down on the edge of her bed, looking somewhat uncomfortable as Kelly took up a seat beside him.

She reached over, placing a gentle hand on his. Joss didn't look to her or even react to the touch. He simply kept his head lowered, too preoccupied with what he had to say.

"What's up?" Kelly asked, looking him up and down with concern creeping quickly into her eyes as she shuffled ever closer to his side. Joss finally pulled away, almost causing Kelly to jump back in surprise as he did so. "Joss!"

He looked to her with guilty eyes that shone by the light on the ceiling above them. The pain in his eyes made Kelly's eyes melt, breaking her heart slowly as she continued to stare at him expectantly. "I never wanted to hurt you, Kel, I swear…"

"Joss?" she asked quietly, shaking her head in confusion as Joss climbed to his feet, staring at himself in the mirror with shame and horror at the man looking right back at him. "Joss? What's wrong?"

He drew in a deep and shaky breath before finally turning to face her, not quite able to muster the courage to meet her expectant eyes. "I've put you at risk."

"At risk?" she asked him in confusion, her brow furrowing in a desperate attempt to sort through the whirring thoughts in her head as she continued to stare at him. "At risk of what? Joss? What the hell is going on?"

Joss suddenly felt a rush of panic run through his body. He bolted for the door, barely able to grasp his hand around the knob before Kelly was on her feet, grabbing his arm in a tight and unrelenting grip that was coming very close to cutting off the circulation to his left hand. "Joss Peroni!" she snapped in the most angry and fierce voice that he had ever heard Kelly use before. "What the bloody hell is going on here?! You are not leaving this room until you've told me what the hell is wrong!"

He turned to her with his guilty eyes that shone with self-blame, the one look instantly softening Kelly's anger and frustration with him. Her grip loosened around his forearm, but Joss didn't pull away. Instead, he finally trusted himself to meet her eyes and let the words he had never wanted to say leave his lips. "I've got…I could have HIV."

"HIV?" Kelly repeated, her eyes widening in horror and despair. Her whole body turned to ice while her thoughts formed an illogical whirlwind in her mind. HIV. Joss could have HIV. If he had HIV, what did that mean for her? "How…how long?" she finally managed to stutter, the only words that she was able to extract from the mess of questions and concerns in her mind.

Joss shrugged helplessly, Kelly's shock somehow more painful than Faye's slap would ever be. He paused, every word catching in his throat and forming a choking lump. "Since about 2002," he replied quietly in a voice that Kelly barely heard, "my girlfriend was cheating on me. I only found out today that she had it. I didn't know, Kel, I honestly didn't know."

"I could have it?" Kelly asked, her voice becoming little more than a hoarse whisper. "I could be HIV-positive?"

"I'm sorry," Joss apologised quietly, reaching out for her hand, only for her to pull away sharply.

She backed away from him, tears forming in her eyes as her voice went from a hoarse whisper to near hysterics. "Keep away from me!" she screamed as she waved her arms around at Joss in a feeble attempt to drive him away. "Keep away from me!"

The pair could hear the sound of urgent footsteps along the hall before Chris Riley opened the door, peering inside with a concerned expression on her face. "Kelly?" she asked worriedly, her gaze shifting between the two Constables standing before her, Kelly looking distressed and clearly upset while Joss looked guilty and ashamed. "Is something wrong?"

Kelly mopped at the tears welling in her eyes with the back of her hand, shaking her head slowly as she tried to hide her face from the inquisitive publican and Joss. "No," she answered weakly, "no. Joss is just leaving."

Joss stared at Kelly for a long moment before nodding and heading for the door, not able to meet Chris' eyes and not stopping to give her a chance to ask him about what had just happened. Chris watched as Joss disappeared down the hallway before turning back to Kelly, fixing her with a worried stare. "Are you okay?"

Nodding weakly, Kelly sat down on the edge of her bed, running her fingers back through her hair. "Yeah," she lied in a shaky and weak voice. "I'm fine."

She waited in silence until Chris finally nodded to herself and left, closing the door quietly behind her. In the silence of her hotel room, the ramifications of what Joss had told her finally seemed to sink in. She could be HIV-positive and if she was, then she was living on borrowed time.

------------------------------------------------

Amy rose her head from the pillow of the large double bed, watching as PJ entered the room they had just begun to share, forgetting to turn off the light as he sat down on the edge on the bed. She climbed up into a sitting position and crawled across the bed to him, kneeling beside him as their eyes met. "Peej," she began, shaking her head in confusion. "What happened between you and Joss today?"

He forced a weak laugh, reaching back to squeeze her shoulders fondly. "Nothing," he lied in the most convincing voice he could manage, "nothing you need to worry about."

"PJ, you're lying." Amy told him, breaking free of PJ's arm. His weak smile faded as he began to nod, realising that trying to lie to Amy was a pointless exercise. She was too good a copper and she knew him too well. "What did Joss say to you?"

PJ sighed, shrugging his shoulders sadly. He distracted himself momentarily by kicking off his slippers and climbing back into the blankets while Amy did the same on her side of the bed. Finally, he spoke quietly, letting blue eyes meet green. "He's got a lot of stuff to deal with, Amy," he admitted quietly, despite the fact that no one else would be able to hear them from inside their house. "I can't tell you what it is, but…"

"But?" Amy demanded softly, blinking in confusion.

"But…worst case scenario," PJ finished with a sad and uncertain shrug, "I don't think he'll cope at all." He sighed, contemplating his words again. "Not at all."


	50. Ep 10: At Risk Pt4

**Part 4**

_Lyrics in this part come from "Steer" by Missy Higgins._

Joss rolled onto his side and reached out for the empty space beside him, forgetting for the umpteenth time that night that Kelly wasn't lying next to him anymore. He closed his eyes and buried his face in his pillow as his hand hit the sheet, his whole body feeling heavy and empty. He'd let her down when he had vowed never to do so. He had pushed her until she had admitted she had feelings for him and embarked on a relationship with him, and he'd let her down. If he'd just left her to her decision of "career first, love later", then she wouldn't be stuck in this tangle of ruined lives. And if she had HIV, then her career would be over.

"Kel," he moaned, rolling onto his stomach and giving the mattress beneath him an angry kick of frustration. He wasn't even twenty-five, neither was she, and suddenly they were staring down the barrel of a death sentence. And it was all his fault.

_And you stuffed it up_

_------------------------------------------------_

PJ looked up from the file that Amy had pushed under his nose as Joss headed into the station and towards the mess room. Amy watched in confusion and puzzlement as PJ handed the file back to her and headed swiftly for the mess room after Joss. Her eyes narrowed as she watched PJ go, before she eventually shook her head in an attempt to shake it from her mind. She lowered her head back to the files on her desk while, in the station corridor, PJ grabbed Joss' wrist.

"Mate," he began, fixing Joss with a sympathetic stare, "how are you travelling?"

Joss stared at PJ thoughtfully for a long moment, before shaking his head as tears reappeared in his eyes. PJ quickly steered him into the thankfully empty mess room and closed the door behind him, leaning back against it to deter their colleagues from eavesdropping.

"I couldn't sleep last night," he confessed quietly. "Everything just kept going around and around in my head."

"Yeah…" PJ sighed, panic suddenly creeping through his features as someone tried to push the door open from the other side. He jumped back, letting Kari enter the room with her coffee cup in hand.

She looked to Joss worriedly, her expression becoming very soft and concerned. "How are you going?" she asked quietly, abandoning her cup on the sink as she approached him. "Have you spoken to Fiona again about this?"

PJ's gaze travelled quickly from Joss to Kari and back again as his eyes narrowed in confusion. "Who's Fiona?" he queried with a puzzled glance at Joss.

"She's my ex-girlfriend," Joss explained in a quiet voice, meeting PJ's eyes weakly. "The one who's given me the HIV."

PJ looked to Kari with alarm in his features, but the younger woman seemed unmoved. She knew. "You don't know for sure, mate," PJ soothed, looking to Joss, silently pleading with him. "See Sophie. Get the test done. Then, if it comes back positive, worry about what happens next. Don't do it now, don't torture yourself."

Joss met PJ's eyes slowly, before looking over to see that Kari was nodding in agreement. Perhaps they knew better than he did. "Yeah," he agreed with a slow and deliberate nod, "I will. I will."

_------------------------------------------------_

Joss looked down to his arm, where Sophie was drawing blood. He hated the horrible, unnerving feeling that having blood taken created. It tended to make him feel almost ill. Sitting in the chair in Sophie's hospital room, having blood taken for a HIV test was no exception.

Sophie looked up from where she was scrawling Joss' name on a label on a small vial of blood, eyeing off Joss uneasily. She wasn't quite sure what to say to him, she never quite was in situations involving her friends. She now knew exactly why they were always told never to treat a friend or family member. "Try not to think about it," she suggested softly as Joss looked up to meet her gaze shakily. "The results won't be back for a few weeks, don't stress about it until you know for sure."

He forced a weak laugh, Kari and PJ's words echoing around in his head. "Yeah," he replied with a mumble and a nod, "did you lot come up with this stuff together or what?"

"Joss…" Sophie soothed, looking to him with as best a sympathetic expression as she could manage. "We're only looking out for you, you know."

"Yeah, yeah," Joss mumbled with a nod, looking down to his arm again as the sick feeling returned to his mouth. "I know."

_------------------------------------------------_

Alex looked up from his computer to find Kari standing over him, looking down at him expectantly. He ran a hand back through his hair as he met her eyes, waiting for her to say something. She always looked at him like that when she was going to say something. "What?" he finally asked, folding his arms across his chest impatiently. Kari was slightly taken aback. She had been told about the old Alex Kirby and his immature sense of humour and she couldn't believe that that man and the one before her were the same person.

"I need some personal time," Kari explained quietly, lowering her voice to try to deter Kelly from overhearing, though something told her that the younger blonde was adequately preoccupied with her own thoughts. "Please?"

Alex rolled his eyes, looking to Kari pleadingly. "But I've got you rostered on duty," he told her blankly, "why?"

"There's…." she paused, trying to find some sort of excuse that would please Alex without telling him outright what was going on. "There's just something I have to do. Please? I really need to do this."

"Fine," Alex sighed in reply, watching dismally as Kari left. Kelly looked up to him, hoping desperately that he wouldn't notice the bags under her eyes from a sleepless night of torturing herself. Alex looked to her, regarding her with annoyance. "What?"

Kelly just shrugging, looking back to her work. "Nothing," she replied distractedly, rubbing her temples in an attempt to make the paperwork before her make some sort of sense. "Nothing."

_------------------------------------------------_

Kari bounded up the footpath to a familiar Mt. Thomas house, unable to resist a surprised glance at the belongings scattered and broken in the front yard. She knocked loudly on the front door, however received no reply. After several more attempts at arousing Fiona and Andrew, she headed around to the side of the house, expertly climbing over the wooden gate and scanning the backyard quickly.

She headed around to the backdoor and pulled the flyscreen open. Testing the knob of the wooden door, she was surprised to find it unlocked. She invited herself inside, leaving the door open behind her.

"Fiona?" Kari called into the silent house, looking around warily. At no reply, she called again. "Fiona? Andrew? It's Senior Constable Kari Izumi from the Mt. Thomas police!"

Despite her calls, Kari still received no reply or sign of life from either Fiona or Andrew. She continued to make her way through the house until eventually she reached what she guess to be the master bedroom and pushed the door open. She instantly wished she hadn't. Lying still on the floor just at Kari's feet was Fiona, her throat cut and forming a pool of dried blood beneath her. Kari closed her eyes tightly trying to force the image from her mind as she stepped over Kari cautiously. When she reopened her eyes, she was immediately met with another distressing sight, this time Andrew lying on the bed with his throat cut too and the knife still dangling from his lifeless fingers.

It took several moments before what she was seeing sunk in for Kari. She had never seen anything like this in Drover's Creek. She quickly removed herself from the situation, drawing in deep breaths as she leant back against the wall outside the room. Finally, she was able to process enough to grab her mobile phone and find the number she needed. "Hi, PJ," she spoke quickly as the person on the other end of the phone answered. She didn't give them a chance to say a word. "It's Kari. We've got a problem."

_------------------------------------------------_

Joss returned to the police station, immediately grateful that Kelly wasn't sitting in the muster room. Instead, he was greeted by the sight of a grave-looking Alex, who was speaking to someone in quiet tones over the radio. Joss paused, looking at his Acting Sergeant with confusion. "What's going on?" Joss cast a glance around the station, noticing that not only were Kelly and Kari missing, but PJ, Amy and Mark as well. "Where is everybody?"

Alex quickly wrapped up whatever he was saying on the radio and looked up to Joss blankly, setting the radio down. "You remember that domestic you and Kari attended yesterday?"

He nodded as his mind drifted back momentarily to Fiona and Andrew, his confusion deepening. "Yeah," he replied cautiously, suddenly becoming quite uneasy. "What's happened?"

"It looks like the husband killed his wife, then killed himself," Alex explained dully as he sat back down at his desk and picked up the phone. "He slit their throats with a kitchen knife…" Alex trailed off, shaking images of blood and death from his mind. He just couldn't seem to do that these days, the images of Susie were getting too strong.

Joss hung his head, barely able to believe it. Fiona...he hadn't loved her for years, he couldn't love her after what she did, but she was still a person. Still a person…

"Where's Kelly?" he asked Alex, who had just started speaking to someone on the phone.

Alex covered the mouthpiece of the phone and looked back to Joss briefly. "Ah…mess room, I think. Look mate, I think she might want to be alone…"

Alex's words, however, went unheard as Joss was already heading down the hallway to the mess room to speak to Kelly.

_------------------------------------------------_

Kelly rose her head from her hands as the mess room door opened and Joss invited himself inside, leaving her with nowhere to go. She could feel a lump rise in her throat as she stared at him, trying to quell the passion for him from erupting spectacularly. No matter what he'd done to her, what he'd put her at risk of, she still loved him. She just couldn't stop loving him. "What do you want?" she asked quietly in as abrupt a voice as she could manage. She watched him hesitantly as he closed the door behind him and approached her, taking a seat opposite.

"I didn't mean for any of this to happen Kel, I swear I didn't."

She nodded slowly at his words, taking in the pure honesty in his tones. Now was not the time to be angry or to yell or become hysterical as she had the night before. It was time to be honest and lay down everything for the other to see. "I know," she admitted quietly. "I know."

He drew in a deep breath, trying to work out just what to say. He'd made enough mistakes in the last twenty-four hours and he couldn't afford to make anymore. "I went to see Sophie this morning, I got the test done," he explained quietly, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that Alex hadn't decided to check up on them. "It probably won't be back till early April though, you know what doctors are like here in the country."

"Yeah," she agreed with a sad smile. It slowly faded as their eyes met, the sadness and longing radiating from the pair. "I still love you, Joss. I can't stop loving you, no matter how hard I try."

His eyes widened at Kelly's confession. He reached out to take her hand in his, but she pulled away quickly as though his touch caused her pain. "I don't know if I can forgive you though," she added quietly. "If that test comes back positive, then both of our careers are over. All I've ever wanted to do is be a good copper like my Dad and Uncle Tom and that's why I didn't want to get involved with you. I took a chance and I love you, but I can't lose this job. It means the world to me."

Joss nodded sadly, looking away from Kelly as he tried to work through her words. She loved and needed the job to make her happy, no matter how much she loved him. "We're in this together, Kel," he reminded her in a voice close to breaking point. "Whatever happens – negative or positive – this is our problem and we'll deal with it together. I promise."

Kelly rose to her feet, trying to hold back the tears as she pushed a strand of blonde hair back from her face. She couldn't deal with this, she just couldn't. "I've got to go," she mumbled as she forced a smile and headed for the door. "Amy and PJ will want me down at the house to help out."

He watched as she opened the door and went to leave. He couldn't just let her go. "Kel!" he called, causing her to look back to him again. "I'll tell you when I get the test results back, okay?"

She nodded, tearing her gaze from his. "Yeah, thanks."

_------------------------------------------------_

PJ headed around to the back of Amy's chair and leant forward, enveloping her in his arms. It was a late night in April and he and Amy were working back late, much to his discontent. He would have been more than happy for them to kick up their feet at home with some take away and settle in for the night, but Amy was determined to get that report finished. Some things could never change.

He ran his lips along her neck, speaking to her in hushed tones. "You're beautiful, you know that?"

Amy found a smile creeping across her face as she sat her pen down and let PJ romance her briefly. "Peej," she told him warningly, "if this report isn't finished by tomorrow morning, Piper Morris will have our heads on a platter."

"PJ not care for Piper Morris," he teased playfully as he continued to kiss her tenderly, "PJ only care for Amy Fox and food."

She couldn't help but laugh at this comment as she turned to face him. "I should feel flattered," she replied with a laugh, "being put in the same category as food."

He leant in and kissed her in one smooth movement. "Yes, you should," he pointed out softly. "But I care for you very, very much."

Just as their lips were about to once again meet in a romantic lock, the phone out in the muster room disturbed their private little world. They looked out beyond their office to see Joss picking up the phone and speaking quietly. PJ stepped towards the window, watching with narrowed eyes as Joss finally hung up the phone and headed for the mess room. Without hearing a word Joss had said to the person on the other end of the line, he knew exactly what was going on. Joss had just gotten his test results back.

Amy rose to her feet, tiredly combing messy strands of brown hair from her face. "You know, I think I'm getting a bit hungry myself," she told him with a smile. She kissed him quickly as she headed for the door. "I'll grab us some sandwiches from the mess room, okay?"

Amy was already gone before PJ was able to coordinate himself to stop her.

_------------------------------------------------_

Joss invited himself into the mess room to find himself face to face with Kelly. She was standing at her locker, pulling her old red jacket over her uniform, presumedly about to head home for the pub. She spun at the sound of the door being shut as her face became apprehensive. In the time since Joss had told her about the HIV, they had avoided each other like the plague. And it was breaking her heart.

One look at his face told her what he had come to talk to her about. "The test results are back, aren't they?" she asked quietly, fear and apprehension in her voice. Joss nodded slowly at this, while Kelly closed her locker door and headed over to the sink. She had a horrible sensation that she was about to throw up. "And?"

He approached her, closing the distance until it barely existed anymore. Neither of them felt uncomfortable, despite the lack of contact between them for over a month. "Sophie said there was a possible margin of error, a false reading or whatever," he explained quietly. "She doesn't think it was likely with how long it's been, but there's a possibility of error."

Kelly nodded slowly, trying to digest what Joss was trying to say. "And?"

Joss' face remained solemn for a long moment, before finally cracking into a bright smile that had been absent for too long a time. His eyes attained a sparkle that Kelly had almost forgotten had ever existed and he suddenly seemed to stand up a little straighter. "It came back negative."

Her eyes welled with tears of disbelief at this as her lips twisted into a beaming smile. She threw her arms around Joss' neck, kissing his cheek desperately and rocking him side to side. "Thank God for that!" she declared brightly. "Thank God!"

In one quick moment that neither quite understood, they were suddenly locked in a passionate embrace, with Kelly slowly slipping Joss' shirt to the ground while Joss unzipped Kelly's red jacket and began to unbutton her shirt. Just before Kelly let the shirt slip off her shoulders, however, the door opened and a surprised cry could be heard.

The pair froze, their eyes meeting with uncertainty as they realised just how horrible a situation they were being found in. Joss was shirtless and Kelly was just about wearing little more than her underwear. In the doorway, Amy quickly looked away, flushing bright red at the sight that had greeted her. Suddenly, she didn't really feel like that sandwich anymore. She glanced up to the ceiling, anything to stop herself from looking at her half-naked colleagues.

"So, ah…" she began, running a hand back through her hair nervously, "how long has this been going on?"

Kelly and Joss shared an awkward glance before finally Joss replied. "Ah…a few months…"

Amy nodded, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her black jacket, lowering her gaze to her feet. God, this was embarrassing! "Does anyone else know?" she asked, trying to resist the urge to laugh. If this was happening to anyone else, it would be hilarious. She got the feeling that PJ would be laughing about this all night if she told him.

"No," Kelly answered quickly, tightening her grip on Joss' shoulders slightly as their eyes connected again. "Just us and Joss' mum."

Amy nodded, once again adjusting her hair nervously. "Well," she began, finally deciding to make her exit, "ah…carry on…" She quickly walked right back out the door, closing it behind her before heading back to the CI office on shaky and numb legs.

PJ looked up expectantly as she returned, his expression becoming one of concern as she sat down at her desk, massaging her temples. He crossed the office to her so that their faces were just centimetres apart. "What did Joss say?" he asked quietly.

She looked up to him, suddenly unable to hide back the smile. "Not a great deal," she replied, "I think he was a bit embarrassed at being caught shirtless with Kelly."

"Joss?" PJ demanded in surprise, raising an eyebrow. "Shirtless? Kelly? What the?" As the questions tumbled forth from his lips, PJ realised suddenly why Joss had been so distressed about the HIV issue and just what the result must have been if he was back to romancing Kelly. Joss wasn't HIV-positive and neither was Kelly.

Life for the young lovers was finally looking up a bit.


	51. Ep 11: Japanese Story Pt1

**Episode 11: "Japanese Story"**

**Summary: **_Kari is paid an unpleasant visit by her past when a young Japanese man named Takeru Yagami arrives at the police station. As she relives her life before the Victoria Police, the Heelers realise there is more to their newest colleague than meets the eye. Meanwhile, Mark and Alex undergo their exams._

**Part 1**

A sleek black car pulled to a stop across the road from the police station, the car's lone driver pushing his sunglasses back to the top of his head and turning to regard the building with contempt. After years of searching, he'd finally found her. Hikari Izumi could run from her past as much as she liked, but she'd never be able to truly hide.

The Asian driver finally climbed out of his car, straightening his black suit with his hands as he crossed the road quickly without even bothering to check for traffic. His lips twisted into a smile as he approached the front doors, peering through the glass to the empty reception area beyond. He slipped away from the door, pulling a mobile phone from the pocket of his pants. He dialled a familiar number and rose it to his ear, unable to hide the grin from his face.

"Izumi-san?" he asked as the person on the other end of the line picked up after several rings. "It's Takeru. I've finally found Hikari-san. You won't believe where I found her either…"

_------------------------------------------------_

Kari sat back in a chair in the mess room, watching Alex pull on his dress uniform with a nervous smile. He looked horribly uneasy as he pulled on his blue police jacket, his face pale and his hands shaking ever so slightly. It was finally the day that Mark and Alex would travel to Melbourne to undergo their exams and Alex wasn't taking the stress well at all. She couldn't blame him, after everything that had happened with Amy and PJ and Susie and everything else.

He finally seemed to realise she was there as he turned to pull on his tie, jumping slightly at her presence. Kari leant forward over the table, fixing him with a sympathetic stare. "You'll be alright, Alex," she told him with a smile, "I know you will."

"I've barely studied," he reminded her curtly as he tightened his tie, only to loosen it again and retie it. "I haven't studied since…" he trailed off as her name came to his lips and he looked away, hiding his face from Kari's view. "I'm totally screwed."

"No, you're not." Kari soothed, looking down to her tea before pushing it across the table towards where Alex stood. "Look, have my tea. I don't really want it now, anyway. It'll help. It's my Okaasan's special recipe."

Alex looked to her in confusion as he took the mug from the table, raising it to his lips. "Okaasan?" he asked with a puzzled expression on his face.

"Yeah," Kari replied with a nod as she blushed bright red. "It's Japanese for mother."

He nodded, taking a sip at the tea, before raising his eyebrows in approval. "Hmmm," he told her with a weak smile, "not half bad. Tell your Okaasan that her recipe meets the approval of Alex Kirby."

She sighed sadly, looking away from Alex as she let his words run through her mind. "I haven't seen my Okaasan since I joined the coppers," she admitted quietly, any trace of a smile vanishing from her features. An uneasy silence fell between them as finally Kari glanced down to her watch, her eyes widening at the time. "You'd better be going if you want to make your exams on time!" she told him, forcing enthusiasm into her voice for his sake. "Come on, get going!"

Alex returned her weak smile, quickly redoing his tie as she ushered him out the mess room door. "Thanks for the tea," he told her, pausing momentarily to meet her gaze before Kari pushed him down the hallway towards Mark who was waiting for him with car keys in hand.

"Good luck!" she called down the corridor to the two men as they left for the long drive to Melbourne. She headed back into the mess room, but she hadn't even sat down again before Joss emerged in the doorway, grabbing her shoulder.

"Kari," he told her, his voice and his touch causing her to spin towards him sharply. "There's someone in reception asking for you. Says his name is Takeru Yagami or something."

Her eyes filled with horror at the name and she sank into the chair, burying her face in her hands. "Oh no," she mumbled, desperately massaging her temples to force some logical thoughts into her mind. Not Takeru Yagami. Anyone but Takeru Yagami.

Joss watched her with curious eyes that became more and more concerned as she remained almost motionless in the chair. "Kari?" he asked her gently, perching himself on the table beside her. "Are you alright? Do you want me to send Takeru away?"

She nodded without meeting Joss' eyes. He forced a weak smile at her and squeezed her shoulder on the way out, leaving Kari once again alone in the mess room, this time fear and desperation running through her body. She knew what Takeru would want from her and it was the one thing she wouldn't give him. She'd been fooled once; she wasn't doing it again…

_Kari waited on the chair in the dining room, wringing her hands together in her lap, stopping every so often to straighten her plain black skirt nervously. He mother sat beside her, offering her a weak smile and words of gentle encouragement whenever she felt that her daughter was becoming too frazzled._

_Finally, her father returned from the living room, a much younger Japanese man following with a rather modest bouquet of pink flowers in his arms. Kari looked him up and down, despite her every attempt unable to find any faults with him on appearance. In fact, he was actually rather attractive._

"_Hikari," her father spoke as he motioned to the younger man beside him, "this is Takeru-san."_

_Takeru crossed the room, bowing low as he stopped just centimetres from Kari's chair. She watched him critically, stealing a glance to her mother for support. Her mother just looked away, keeping her gaze low and her expression blank._

_------------------------------------------------_

PJ headed out into the muster room, checking over the instructions that Mark had left him. With both Alex and Mark in Melbourne, PJ had been put in charge of the station for the day, a decision that had earned playful groans of complaint from his colleagues. "Right," PJ declared, skimming over the paper quickly, "Kari, Kelly – you're on patrol now and Joss…you're on cleaning duties…"

Laughter erupted from Kelly as Joss let out an almighty moan. "Ha!" Kelly laughed as she grabbed up her jacket and met Kari at the door. "Take that, Peroni!"

"You'll get yours!" Joss teased from his desk as Kelly disappeared from view, shooting him a flirtatious smile before she left. PJ nodded to himself before returning to the CI office, finding Amy chuckling to herself with a smile on her face.

"Nice to see those two back to normal," PJ mused, earning an agreeing nod from Amy.

She craned her neck to see Joss back out in the muster room, finally resigning himself to once again fulfilling the cleaner's job description. "Yeah," she admitted with a nod. "It is."

_------------------------------------------------_

Kari followed Kelly out to the patrol car, her mind still a million miles away. How had Takeru found her in this town after so long? Surely he wouldn't be on his own in this, her father had to be behind trying to find her. Takeru had never been the sort to go to this sort of trouble off his own back to find her.

Suddenly, a cold hand gripped her wrist, sending a cold shiver of panic through her body. She spun in reflex to find herself staring at the blank, almost angry face of Takeru Yagami, their faces so close that it scared the living daylights out of her. She was momentarily frozen, lost in a world of memories and fear that kept her from any logical thoughts to pull herself away.

"Hikari-san," he addressed her quietly as her breath began to come in frightened and breathless gasps. "You've got no idea how hard we've been trying to find you."

Her eyes narrowed as her attention fixed firmly to one of the words he had just spoken. "We?" she asked slowly. "My father's put you up to this, hasn't he?"

"It doesn't matter who put me up to what," Takeru replied, his accent becoming more pronounced as his voice became almost aggressive. "The point is that we've found you so now you can come home."

Kari shook her head, trying unsuccessfully to yank her arm away. Takeru was stronger now than she remembered him ever being. "Get stuffed, Yagami," she spat harshly, "and tell my father to get stuffed too while you're at it."

"You can run, Hikari-san," Takeru mumbled as Kelly finally registered what was going on and raced over, "but you can't hide. It's your heritage, in your blood."

"You're hurting me," Kari told him as his grip tightened on her hand. "You're scaring me."

Kelly raced over, grabbing Takeru's arm to pull him away from Kari. "Hey!" she shouted in desperation as Takeru near flung her away, withdrawing his grip from Kari's arm. Kelly quickly regained her balance and headed back to the scuffle, only to see Takeru walking away with his hands in his pockets and Kari rubbing her arm, Takeru's grip having left a large red mark on her wrist. "You okay?" Kelly asked quietly, as Kari shook her head slowly.

"No," she admittedly as she headed away from the patrol car and towards her own vehicle. "I'm taking some private time. If anyone's got a problem with that, then you can tell them where to shove it."

"Kari!" Kelly called after her colleague as she climbed in her car and disappeared up the road and around a corner. She swore in frustration as she folded her arms across her chest, narrowing her eyes as she tried to put the pieces of the puzzle into place in her mind. Something was telling her that there was more to Kari Izumi than she had ever been aware of.


	52. Ep 11: Japanese Story Pt2

**Part 2**

Kari stared beyond the clenched fists resting on her knees and out over the bush before her, her dark eyes showing every bit of the strain that she had been put under. No matter how hard she tried, she simply couldn't get Takeru Yagami or her father out of her mind. She spent so much of the last few years running from them and her past, trying so hard to build a new life for herself, and now it was all coming to nothing. If Takeru was here, then her father wouldn't be too far behind him.

A cool breeze picked up, lifting leaves and plant litter from the ground around her and into a whirlwind in the air. Kari watched as the leaves danced in the air before the breeze disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving them to fall back to the ground softly. She sighed, finally climbing to her feet and quickly surveying the National Park around her. It was so peaceful that she wished she could just fall to the ground like the leaves and lay there forever, but she knew she couldn't.

There was only one way to take Takeru Yagami down that she knew of and she'd need Amy and PJ's help to do it.

---------------------------------

PJ looked up from the rosters on his desk, smiling at the sight of Amy desperately trying to finish a report as she munched away on a sandwich from the pub. She used the back of her hand to brush at the corner of her mouth as she looked up to him, fixing him with a sympathetic stare at the pained look in his eyes. "Aw, Peej," she soothed with a smile, "what's wrong?"

He shook himself to attention, motioning with a hand down to the rosters, rolling his eyes as he flopped forward over his desk. "I hate all this crappy Sergeant paperwork," he told her with a false groan. "Too much sitting behind a desk giving orders and not enough getting dirty in the field."

Amy sat her sandwich and report aside as she approached him, perching herself on the corner of his desk and gently pushing the rosters away. She shot him the most flirtatious smile she could manage as she leant in, taking advantage of the empty muster room to steal a passionate kiss. PJ was soon kissing her back, running his fingers back through her hair as he drew her closer.

"Hey, guys…"

Amy jumped back suddenly as the door from the back entrance opened and Kari peered through, her eyes somehow darker than normal and lacking any of the vibrant love of life that they knew well. Amy quickly sat against her own desk, combing fingers through her hair to tidy it again.

"What's up?" PJ asked, his heart still racing as he spun to Kari.

Kari invited herself inside the office silently, gathering her thoughts before finally speaking in a quiet voice that was still full of conviction. "I need you to help me with something."

"Like?" Amy asked, sharing a hesitant glance with PJ. Kari was being awfully vague.

"I know someone," Kari began, shuffling her feet awkwardly and trying to keep her gaze focused on her colleagues. "He's been involved in fraud and embezzling for a long time. I want him charged."

The two detectives looked to each other with blank expressions as they tried to work through Kari's words. Finally, PJ broke the uneasy silence. "Why now?" he asked her quietly.

She shrugged, shaking her head slowly. "Why not?" she replied, before drawing in a deep breath to renew her conviction. "I just need to stop him. And I really need your help to do that. Please?"

Amy nodded, beginning to bite her lip thoughtfully as her mind began to whirl over what they had just been told. "Who is he?"

"Takeru Yagami." Kari finished, her voice teeming with an overwhelming conviction that almost scared Amy and PJ. Something told them that this Takeru Yagami wasn't a friendly figure at all.

---------------------------------

Takeru lay back on his bed at the Commercial Hotel, passing his mobile phone from hand to hand as his eyes grew distant and dark. Thoughts of Hikari Izumi ran through his mind, intertwining with thoughts of the reward he would receive for finding her. He had spent so much of the last few years searching, only to find that she'd switched to the other side of the law.

A sudden knock at the door snatched his attention away from his phone as he climbed up to answer it, only to be facing two figures with overly serious expressions on their faces.

Amy dug through the pockets of her black jacket before pulling out her badge, flashing it towards Takeru as PJ grabbed him firmly enough to hamper any escape attempts. "I'm Senior Detective Amy Fox…"

"And I'm Senior Detective PJ Hasham," PJ continued, physically guiding Takeru out of his pub room and down the corridor, much to the Commercial publican's disdain. "And you're under arrest."

Takeru rolled his eyes, not bothering to try to pull himself free of PJ's grasp. He knew that fighting would only encourage them to come after him with even more zealous. Hikari's father would be hearing about this little stunt, he was certain of that.

---------------------------------

Kari made a dash for the mess room at the sound of the back doors to the station opening, however, was not quite fast enough. She soon found herself standing in the corridor, her eyes locked into contact with Takeru Yagami, who was being held firmly in PJ's grasp. At Kari's shaky composure, Amy headed down the corridor to her younger colleague, placing a hand lightly on her shoulder.

Amy's touch brought Kari stumbling back to earth and finally broke the eye contact between Kari and Takeru. Kari spun to face her, brushing a strand of dark hair back from her face nervously. "You brought him in," she remarked quietly, earning a cautious nod from Amy.

"We found him at the Commercial Hotel," she replied biting her bottom lip nervously as she regarded Kari. "He hasn't said much of anything yet. How do you know this guy, anyway?"

Kari stared down the corridor, only to find PJ standing at the door of the interview room with no Takeru in sight. He was beckoning with his hand for Amy to join him to interrogate Takeru. Amy waved back to PJ vaguely, before returning her attention to Kari. Her brow continued to furrow, before she eventually looked back to Amy with a steely, yet somewhat vulnerable expression.

"I just know him," she explained, before turning on her heel and disappearing off to the mess room. Amy stood alone, continuing to bite her bottom lip distractedly, before she was startled back to reality by PJ's hand on her shoulder.

"Come on," he told her as he ushered her off towards the interview room, "time to nail the bastard."

---------------------------------

Kari sat in the mess room, staring blindly at the wall over the top of her knuckles. She clenched and unclenched her hands as she sat at the table, her dark eyes blank and devoid of emotion. She couldn't stop the memories from flooding back to her, overwhelming every attempt to remain detached from her past. She'd fought for so long to keep her past and her family at a distance, yet now in just one moment, Takeru Yagami had reversed it all. Perhaps she'd never be able to hide away from it; maybe this was as close as she could get to total detachment…

_Kari looked over to the harbour, smiling at the sight of the reflections on the water, each one breaking into ripples as ferries passed across. She could feel Takeru's grip tighten on her hand as they continued to make their way slowly along the path, the usually busy harbour seeming somehow empty. It was almost as though they were the only ones alive, like the world revolved only for them._

_Her heart fluttered briefly as Takeru pulled his hand away, pulling to a stop in front of her. She blinked in confusion at the steely and determined expression on his face. She quickly clasped her hands together in front of her stomach, if only to stop them from shaking with anticipation._

_Takeru suddenly dropped to one knee, drawing a small dark box from his jacket pocket in one swift movement. He opened it, offering up the beautiful and no doubt expensive ring for Kari's inspection. Her hands flew up to her mouth in instinct as a loud gasp left her mouth and she jumped back, nearly falling over backwards in the process._

_He narrowed his eyes, his expression still filled with determination. "Hikari-san," he began, his accent becoming somehow more pronounced with his voice little more than a whisper. He spoke quickly in Japanese, saying something that Kari had to take a moment to translate in her mind. As soon as Takeru's Japanese formed an English phrase in her head, she just about passed out from shock. He was asking her to marry him._

_It was a long moment before she eventually nodded numbly, causing Takeru to let out a loud cry of excitement and pride. He jumped to his feet, pulling her into his arms and slipping the ring over her finger. Kari let Takeru do as he wish as she continued to stand in his arms, her mouth twisted into a smile, but her eyes doubtful._

_Whatever was going on here, it was moving awfully fast._


	53. Ep 11: Japanese Story Pt3

**Part 3**

PJ sat at the table in the interview room, his gaze shifting between Takeru Yagami sitting before him and Amy pacing along the wall behind him, obviously trying to carefully phrase her words. He knew how impossible this interview was going to be. They knew virtually nothing about what kind of fraud and embezzling Takeru had been involved in, in fact, they only had Kari's word that it had even taken place. But he didn't trust the man sitting across from him and he knew that Amy didn't either.

"So, Mr. Yagami," Amy began, stopping suddenly and spinning on her heel to face the Japanese man sitting at the table, looking rather calm and composed for someone who had just been arrested. "We've had a report that you've been involved in fraud and embezzlement. What do you want to say about that?"

Takeru looked up to Amy with his narrowed and dark eyes, leaving her quite stunned at how very different they seemed from Kari's. While Kari's eyes were friendly and kind, Takeru's were cold and devoid of emotion. "Hikari Izumi told you, didn't she?"

"It's irrelevant who our informant is," PJ explained as Amy clutched her clipboard tightly to her chest. "All that's relevant to this interview is your activities involving fraud and embezzlement."

Takeru just shook his head, a half-smile creeping across his face. "She did tell you, then," he responded, almost laughing at the thought. PJ and Amy's expressions visibly fell at Takeru's words, knowing instantly that this man had worked it out. Whoever Takeru Yagami was, he knew Kari well from what they could tell. "Well, well, well," Takeru continued as his smile broadened. "I should have known. I think you'll find that Hikari-san has her facts wrong. You know the story, a woman scorned…"

Amy shot Takeru a roll of her eyes and stormed out of the interview room, slamming the door loudly behind her. PJ and Takeru watched the door close, before the Japanese man leant across the table. "You've got nothing, you know," he pointed out in a heavy accent. PJ regarded him with contempt and frustration as he continued. "You can try, but you've got nothing. You know you've got nothing."

PJ frowned, his brow furrowing, before he rose to his feet and followed Amy out of the interview room, where he found her pacing the corridor and slowly but surely wearing a track in the floor.

"That bastard's got us," she mumbled to herself as she bit her thumbnail thoughtfully. "He's got us and he knows he's got us. Little self-righteous bastard…" Amy trailed off, suddenly spinning to face PJ with frustration and determined rife in her face. "And what's his connection to Kari, anyway?"

He just shrugged, glancing back over his shoulder and into the interview room. Takeru was sitting at the table, leaning back in his chair and grinning like some ridiculous Cheshire cat.

"What the hell does that smug bastard want?" Amy mused, drawing level with PJ as the pair continued to stare into the interview room, their minds whirring with thoughts and suspicions.

"No idea, Amy," PJ admitted, "absolutely no idea."

---------------------------------

Kari peered out beyond the mess room door, her eyes widened at the sight of Amy and PJ leading Takeru Yagami away towards the door. She hurried down the corridor, shaking her head at the thought of Takeru going free.

"Hey!" she called, causing the group about a metre ahead of her to stop and turn towards her, regarding her with curiosity. Amy and PJ shared an uncertain glance, while Takeru's smug and over-confident smile simply broadened. "You're letting him go?"

Amy shrugged sadly, shooting Takeru a cold glare. "We have nothing to hold him on," she explained regretfully. "We have no evidence…we can't hold him."

Kari shook her head in disbelief. "So you're just going to let him go?"

Amy left PJ to Takeru and headed over to where Kari stood. Just as Amy placed a soothing hand on Kari's shoulder, Takeru piped up from where PJ was just about to steer him around the corner and out of sight.

"Nice little stunt there, Hikari-san," he told her in his usual over-confident tones, "I'm sure your father will be delighted hear about this."

"My father can go screw a tree for all I care," Kari snapped, the only thing stopping her from fully lashing out at Takeru being Amy's hand on her shoulder.

Takeru laughed at this, almost as if he found it amusing. "Next time you want to go pulling a little stunt like this, perhaps you should think about your Okaasan."

Kari's eyes widened as the memory of her mother sprang into her mind. PJ looked to Amy with a confused expression on his face, silently asking her just what Takeru was referring to. Amy just shrugged in reply.

"What about my Okaasan?" Kari demanded, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper.

His smile broadened into a grin at the worry present in Kari's face. "She's dying," he explained, his voice devoid of sympathy or emotion. "Cancer. She was diagnosed with it not long after you packed your bags and disappeared. The docs don't think she has much more than a month left, at the most."

She stared at him in horror as PJ grabbed Takeru roughly and pushed him away out of sight. Amy gave Kari's shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but Kari was uninterested. She pulled away, storming off towards the back entrance of the station and grabbing the keys to her car on the way out.

---------------------------------

Kari sat in her place looking out over the National Park, eyes closed and her knees brought up close to her chest as she tried to suppress the overwhelming emotions swirling around inside of her. Her desperate attempts to hold back choking sobs rang out over the park, disturbing the otherwise blissful quiet. The warm sunlight bathed over her, warming her body and tickling her skin. The irony of how beautiful the weather was in comparison to how awful she felt didn't escape her.

Her Okaasan had been the person who had given her the key to taking her life back, who had supported her when no one else would. She had risked everything just to make sure that Kari could have her life and, in turn, she had been the only thing stopping Kari from taking her father and Takeru down long ago. Any attempts to bring them down was likely to bring her Okaasan crashing down with them.

"Okaasan," she whispered quietly, letting her soft voice ring out weakly over the National Park, "what am I meant to do now?"

_Kari looked herself over in the mirror, her Okaasan making gentle adjustments to the beautiful and delicate kimono hugging her body tightly and flowing to the floor. She had to choke down a wave of doubt to speak. "I'm only nineteen," she explained in a tiny voice that was almost unheard. "I'm still a kid. I'm not ready to get married."_

_Her Okaasan climbed up from where she was kneeling on the floor and crossed the room, being careful to find a place to distract herself where her daughter couldn't see her face. "I was only nineteen when I married your father," she told her rather curtly, "you'll be fine."_

"_I don't want to marry him," Kari snapped, storming across the room and grabbing her Okaasan's wrist, forcing her to make eye contact. "I'm not marrying him, Okaasan."_

_Her Okaasan nodded sadly, brushing aside a strand of dark hair nervously, her hand shaking ever so slightly. "Your father won't be pleased. He has put so much on this wedding."_

_Kari began to quickly untie the kimono, suddenly unable to remain anywhere near it. Her hands fumbled over the knots slightly in her haste to remove it. "I'm his daughter," she pointed out, "that's all that should matter to him."_

"_But we both know that it's not," her Okaasan explained, lowering her voice considerably. Kari regarded her, her brow furrowing at each word. _

"_I…I don't…understand…"_

"_Your father…" her Okaasan began, her accent becoming stronger the quieter her voice became. "He has a lot riding on this wedding."_

_Kari just shook her head, unable to make any sense of what she was being told. It all just rolled around in her head, becoming a horrible blur of thoughts and fears. "Okaasan?"_

_Her Okaasan sighed, finally looking away with guilt and shame evident in her eyes. She pulled away from Kari, crossing the room and pulling a bundle of notes from her dresser drawer, held together by a rubber band. She offered it out to Kari, who took it tentatively, turning it over in her hands._

"_What is this?" she asked quietly, pulling back corners of paper to survey the contents as best she could. Inside was scrawled pen, which she could vaguely decipher to random names, places, numbers and dates. "What's going on?"_

_Her Okaasan returned to her side, unable to meet her daughter's gaze as she regarded the notes in Kari's hands. "Records of every time your father has ever engaged in fraud," she replied, reaching out to take the notes from Kari, but the younger woman refused to let them go. "The moment you marry Takeru Yagami, your father makes a mint."_

Kari was disturbed from the memory by the sound of tires grinding to a halt on gravel, following by a door slamming and heavy, boot clad feet crossing the area between her and the car. She turned to see what was going on, but before she had gotten the chance, she could feel a cold knife pressing against her throat, tiny droplets of blood sliding down her neck. It was nothing major, but the situation was hardly minor.

Her attacker grabbed her hair, yanking it back while somehow managing to restrain her arms in one swift movement. She stared up in terror at the face bearing down on her and a wave of cold realisation washed through her body.

"Takeru," she gasped as his proud, almost manic grin broadened.


	54. Ep 11: Japanese Story Pt4

**Part 4**

Kari felt terror pulse through her body as Takeru began to drag her roughly across the dirt and gravel, his knife digging deeper into the skin of her throat. She struggled to dig her feet into the ground to try to pull herself free, but more she tried to escape, the more sharp the pain at her neck became. A fierce desperation rose within her, a strong desire to escape the clutches of a man who had often haunted her dreams. If she let herself be overwhelmed by Takeru, then she could kiss her new life in Mt. Thomas goodbye. She had her gun, but it was no use to her if she couldn't get her arm free for long enough to grab it.

In one horrible rush of noise and commotion, another car pulled up nearby and a pair of feet raced over before strong arms closed around Takeru's body, sharply jerking him away from a terrified and shaking Kari. She drew back, drawing her gun in trembling hands as she came face to face with PJ, who was holding Takeru in a tight grip and dragging him off to the CI car which was parked at an odd angle nearby.

She began to slowly lower her weapon as PJ locked Takeru in the back of his car and approached her, sympathy shining in his kind blue eyes. He gently helped Kari to her feet, watching her as she tried rather unsuccessfully to dust the dirt from her uniform. "Are you okay?" he asked her quietly, noticing the fear and shock passing through her face.

She nodded weakly, raising a hand to her neck and pulling it away to see the bright red blood smeared over her palm. PJ gently placed a hand on her shoulder, guiding her over to the CI car. "We'll get you back to the station," he told her soothingly, opening the passenger side door for her as she climbed inside.

---------------------------------

PJ sat down opposite Kari in the mess room, watching her with curious eyes as she held an old red tea towel to the cut on her neck. It was still bleeding, forming large red stains over the fabric. "Are you sure you don't want to go to hospital?" he asked, earning a distracted nod in reply.

"Yeah," she replied, wincing in pain. "It's nothing major. Just a cut." She paused, looking away from the man sitting opposite. She used her free hand to brush a dark strand of hair back from her face. "I don't want him charged for this."

His eye's widened, surprise passing across his face. He leant in, lowering his voice instinctively. "Why not?" he demanded softly. "Is it because he attacked you…"

"It's got nothing to do with Takeru attacking me," Kari interrupted, her voice carrying the stress and frustration of that day's events. "I just don't want him charged."

PJ thought through Kari's words, trying to decide what to say. Finally, he just shrugged. "Okay," he replied. "We'll let him go. We don't have enough evidence to hold him over the fraud and embezzlement claims and we can't go ahead with this unless you want to." His expression became sympathetic as he reached out, giving Kari's hand a friendly rub. "But if you need to talk about your mother…"

"Let me guess, you're more than willing to listen?" she finished for him, earning a nod in reply. "I'm okay, PJ. Really."

He climbed to his feet, shooting her a distracted smile before disappearing from the mess room, leaving Kari alone. She lowered the tea towel from her neck, staring thoughtfully into the blood-stained tartan fabric. The more she thought about things, the harder it all seemed to get…

"_Okaasan?" Kari demanded, storming down the beautiful hallway, noticing for the first time all the expensive extravagancies that she had always taken for granted. Now, it made her wonder just how far this fraud went. "Okaasan!"_

_Her Okaasan finally, stopped, raising her arms in the air and waving them in defeat. She spun to face Kari, the tears of fear and frustration welling in her eyes. "I shouldn't have told you, Hikari-chan. I shouldn't have told you."_

_Kari waved the pile of notes at her mother, letting the silence hang over them momentarily. "We need to go to the police," she explained in an almost squeaky voice, "we can't just keep letting this go on."_

"_We can't," her Okaasan replied, reaching out and taking the notes from her daughter. "Your father has thought of all of that, Hikari-chan. I threatened to report him when I first realised what he was doing, but he's put my name on documents. He's pulled me so far into his web that I have no escape. If I take him down, I go down with him."_

_Kari's eyes widened at her Okaasan's words. The older woman looked over the notes, before offering them towards her daughter. Kari took them hesitantly, turning them over in her hands. "Okaasan?"_

"_Take them."_

"_Why?" Kari asked quietly, watching in confusion as her Okaasan pushed past her and back into Kari's bedroom. She pulled a suitcase down from the top of a wardrobe and began stuffing clothes and other random objects inside. Kari grabbed her Okaasan's wrist, meeting her eyes reluctantly._

_Her Okaasan spun to face her, snatching the bundle of notes from Kari's hands and pushing them to the bottom of the pile in the suitcase. "You have to get out of here," she told her, reaching out to stroke Kari's cheek with her soft hand. "You're my beautiful baby Hikari-chan and I love you very, very much. You have to leave here, find somewhere free of your father."_

_Small tears found their way into Kari's eyes and began to slide down her cheeks, streaming down the back of her Okaasan's hand. The older woman soon found herself restraining tears as she returned to her packing. "Get your personal documents," she demanded softly, "I'll stall your father and Takeru-san until you're gone."_

_Kari remained standing beside her Okaasan for a long moment, before finally nodding and disappearing down the hallway to where she knew she'd find the fire-proof safe and their legal personal documents. She couldn't quite register that she was leaving. Far too much had happened in far too short a time. But she knew she couldn't stay. Not when staying meant remaining in her father's web where her own emotions were fair game if it meant more money in the bank._

Amy watched from behind the charge counter as PJ roughly steered Takeru Yagami down the corridor towards it, handing back his belt, tie and shoelaces. She watched the young man critically as he took much pleasure in hanging his tie around his neck, a broad grin spreading across his face.

"I didn't think Hikari-san would be pressing charges," he told Amy and PJ with a chuckle of pride. "I knew she'd see things our way sooner or later."

"Who's 'our'?" Amy asked, leaning forward over the counter as she passed the book over to Takeru. He leant over it while PJ watched on from over his shoulder, watching him as he signed his name.

He looked up to Amy, cocking an eyebrow at her remark. "Well," he replied with a smile, "looks like you don't know everything about your little Hikari-san, do you?"

Frustrated by Takeru's cockiness, PJ finally snapped. He grabbed his shoulder tightly, spinning the man around and leaning in so that he knew his breath was washing over Takeru's face. "Listen here mate," he began, his voice lowered and cold. Amy watched on with narrow eyes, half-considering pulling PJ up for his behaviour. "You ever touch Kari again – or any of my mates, for that matter – and you'll wish you were never born."

He relinquished his grip on Takeru, annoyed by the lack of effect that his words had on his cocky, self-righteous attitude. However, Amy's critical glare kept him from acting on instinct. "Are you happy with your treatment by the police here today?" he asked, his voice little more than a frustrated grumble.

"Oh, yes," Takeru replied as PJ led him towards the exit. He looked over his shoulder as Amy disappeared from view. "I'm over the moon! Let's do it again sometime!"

As soon as Takeru was out of sight, Amy sank forward, letting her forehead rest in the palms of her hands. She ran them back through her hair, closing her eyes as she let that day's events wash over her. It seemed she wasn't the only one hiding secrets in this police station.

---------------------------------

Kari sank back in a chair at the Imperial Hotel, hiding in a corner as best she could. She closed her eyes, trying her hardest to focus on the noise and commotion of the public bar, rather than the memories and fears rising to the fore of her mind. She was silently praying that Takeru Yagami wouldn't stay around in town, there simply wasn't enough room for the two of them. Their whole relationship had been based on a lie, a promise from one businessman to another to expand funds. She was a deal sweetener.

She couldn't stop thinking about her Okaasan, a strong woman whose spirits had been broken by the web of lies that her father had surrounded himself with. She couldn't have Takeru – and, in turn, her father – charged while her mother was ill. That would leave her to support her and she simply didn't have the facilities. Aside from anything else, the stress of the investigation could be simply too much.

She was suddenly brought back to earth by a firm hand on her shoulder, one that was almost instantly withdrawn after she nearly leapt from her seat in surprise.

"Sorry," Alex Kirby apologised, grabbing a chair nearby and taking up a seat next to her. "I didn't mean to frighten you." He stared at Kari thoughtfully, his eyes softening at her downtrodden demeanour. "What happened?" he asked quietly, reaching out to brush a strand of dark hair from her tear-stained cheeks. "Is everything alright?"

"No, Alex," she snapped, pulling away from his touch and desperately trying to brush at her tears. "No, everything is not bloody alright. Nothing could ever be bloody alright right now."

He paused, looking away uneasily. He dug through the pockets of his jacket, handing her an old, creased and crumpled hankie. Kari smiled weakly, taking it from him and dabbing at her eyes with it. She then handed it back, climbing to her feet.

"How did the exams go?" she asked him hurriedly as she grabbed up her bag, combing hair back from her face.

Alex smiled weakly, letting their gaze meet. "I think I did well," he replied in a hushed voice. "It'll be a while before we know for sure, but it's pretty safe to say that Mark and I passed."

"That's great," she told him, a half-hearted smile spreading across her features. "That's really great. Anyway, I've got to go. Night, Alex."

He nodded in farewell as Kari left, lowering her head so that her hair obscured her face from view as she walked away. He couldn't help but notice how she dropped the 'good' from 'good night'. He leant forward over the table, staring across the public bar thoughtfully. Somehow, he couldn't quite get Kari off his mind.


	55. Ep 12: A Kiss Before Dying Pt1

**Episode 12: "A Kiss Before Dying"**

**_Summary: _**Amy is forced to face her estrangement from her family and her thirty-third birthday when her cousin appeals to her for help as his dying wife reaches the end. Confused over her mother's shock illness, Kari seeks comfort in Alex's arms. Kelly and Joss are frustrated when they encounter a young man who insists on driving despite causing havoc on the roads.

**Part 1**

The date on the calendar stared back at her, teasing her and taunting her. She had never bothered to celebrate in years gone by and really couldn't see a point in starting now. It was just another day…so why didn't it feel like that?

Amy reached out to the desk calendar, looking over it with a sad half-smile. Even in the Garth days, she hadn't seen much point in celebrating her birthday. All it ever seemed to do was remind her how much of her life she had already wasted. Nothing pleasant, nothing worth celebrating.

Out in the muster room, she could hear her colleagues and their friendly banter. After several weeks, Alex and Mark's promotions had finally come through. It hadn't made a great deal of difference to them, really. Mark was in his office, working away on paperwork of some description as usual, Alex was trying to force Kelly and Joss to finish some report that was way overdue despite their best attempts to delay the process, while Kari had been unusually downcast and upset. She hadn't been quite right since that Takeru Yagami guy had shown up.

PJ entered their office, surprising her with a tender kiss to her cheek. She nearly jumped from her seat, before relaxing at the sight of him offering her a warm mug of coffee. It was finally starting to cool down, something that she was more than happy about after the scorcher of a summer.

"You certainly know the way to a woman's heart!" Amy exclaimed as her smile broadened and she drew in a mouthful of the warm liquid. She watched him as he sat down and quickly busied himself with the pile of paperwork mounting on his desk. Her face fell as he rearranged the pieces of paper time and time again. There was something on his mind. "What's wrong?"

He rose his head, staring thoughtfully at Amy. "Have you gotten in touch with Brendan yet?"

She paused, brushing hair from her face and back behind her ear. "Why do you ask?"

He shrugged, smiling thoughtfully. "Well, you've been here since November now, I was just thinking that you might have gotten in touch."

"Peej," Amy whispered, shaking her head and lowering her gaze to deter the tears from her eyes. As if the stress of her birthday wasn't enough to make her cry. "Last time we saw each other, I made it pretty clear that I hate him."

"I thought you did the same with me, and we've patched that up pretty well," PJ explained, his expression once again becoming serious. Amy began to bite her bottom lip nervously as PJ's words struck up an unpleasant memory in her mind.

She shook her head, busying herself with a report that had been sitting idly on her desk for months. PJ leant over, pointing to the desk calendar with his eyes.

"It's nearly the end of May, Amy," he reminded her softly. "You've been here for about six months now and you still haven't even attempted to make contact…"

"What if he doesn't want me to make contact?" she interrupted, her voice teeming with emotion. Brendan always seemed to bring out her more emotional and unstable side. "I did have his father arrested and charged with paedophilia, you know."

He gently took Amy's hand in his, rubbing it softly. His touch brought a weak smile to Amy's face, instantly brightening her downtrodden features. The moment between them was almost electric, until Amy pulled her hand away. "I ruined Brendan's family, then I pushed him out of my life," she finished firmly. "I can't make things up with him now."

---------------------------------

Alex tore his gaze away from Kelly and Joss, who were still bickering in their usual friendly nature and looked to Kari, who was staring blindly at the computer screen in front of her. He stared at her thoughtfully for a long moment, before climbing to his feet and waving a hand in front of her eyes. It took several passes across her line of vision before she finally seemed to snap to attention, sending a pile of paperwork on the corner of her desk crashing to the floor.

"Shit, Alex," she mumbled, distractedly brushing hair aside as she dropped to her knees to gather the files up in her arms. "Look what you made me do!"

"Sorry," he apologised quietly, motioning towards the mess room, "I think we should talk, Kari."

She shook her head, angrily dumping the paperwork on her desk and turning to him with frustration. "Why?"

"Just come with me," Alex replied, nodding in the vague direction of the mess room. "Please?"

She gave an annoyed roll of her eyes before finally nodding and following Alex along the corridor to the mess room. He ushered her inside, being careful to close the door silently behind him. Kari looked over the mess room, trying to put her flustered mind in some semblance of order. She was failing miserably. Sometimes Alex just didn't know when not to pry.

He turned to her, approaching her slowly, each step cautious and uneasy. "Something's wrong," he observed quietly, in a barely audible voice. "Something's been wrong for weeks now. And you're not leaving this room until you tell me what it is."

Kari felt her heart skip a beat in her chest. She lurched forward, diving for the door, but found Alex grabbing her roughly to stop her from leaving. He wrapped his arms around her waist until she stopped struggling, at which point he released her from his grasp.

"Why are you pushing this so hard?" she asked, trying to stop thoughts of her beloved Okaasan springing to her mind. "Why can't you just leave it alone?"

"Because…" Alex trailed off, finding himself lost for words. He gestured wildly with a hand as he tried to force the words to come to his mind. "Because…I care about you, Kari. I really do. And I just want to help you with whatever's wrong."

She regarded him with fading suspicion, drawing in a shaky breath. Alex wasn't letting up on her easily, that was for sure.

---------------------------------

"Why do they always send us out on the crap jobs?" Joss demanded, hitting the steering wheel with a hand in frustration. "We're not the dweeby little Probationary Constables anymore. It's just not bloody fair."

Kelly forced a weak laugh at this, stuffing a piece of strawberry-flavoured chewing gum into her mouth in a swift movement that stole Joss' attention from the road briefly.

"Where's mine?" Joss demanded, reaching over for the packet in Kelly's soft, pale hands. She jerked them away from his grasp, poking out her tongue teasingly.

"Get your own, Peroni!" she snapped in reply, her laugh sending tingles of warm and love through Joss' body. The pleasant feeling didn't last long, however, before Kelly's voice rang out, alarmed and frightened. "Look out, Joss!"

He turned back to the road, cursing loudly as he barely managed to steer the patrol car out of the way of an approaching ute. The patrol car spun out of control briefly, before coming to a safe stop just off the side of the country road. The ute's male driver waved a furious fist out of his window at them, causing Joss to grab the steering wheel threateningly.

"Let's get him!" he exclaimed, earning a shake of Kelly's head.

"You're an idiot, Peroni," she told him in frustration, reaching over to take the keys from the ignition. She opened the car door, climbing out and approaching his side of the vehicle. "I'm not getting back in this car with you until I'm in the driver's seat."

"But…but I…" Joss trailed off, his desperate plea for mercy interrupted by the sight of a small black Holden passing them, the P-plate driver behind the wheel zig-zagging over the road in a way that made the pair cringe. "Oh my God…"

Kelly opened Joss' door, leaning over him to undo his seatbelt and forcibly dragging him out of the vehicle. "Come on, Peroni!" she snapped, climbing into the car as a dazed Joss headed around to the passenger side. "We've got to stop that guy before he kills himself and everyone else on the road."

---------------------------------

The buzzer sounded from the reception area, startling each of the officers from their daydreams. Mark stepped out of his office and out in the muster room, raising an eyebrow at the suspicion absence of uniforms. He rolled his eyes as he headed for the door out into the reception area, coming face to face with a man in his thirties, not much older than Amy or Alex.

The man standing opposite looked rather uneasy at the police station, shuffling his weight awkwardly and pulling his old brown jacket tighter around his body. His hair hung messily around his face and his chin exposed the fact that he hadn't shaved in weeks.

"Yes?" Mark asked, approaching the desk cautiously and bracing himself on it as he eyed the man up and down. "Is there anything I could help you with?"

The man didn't reply directly to Mark's question, instead staring at the door back into the muster room as though it may somehow disappear and allow him to see through to the main station. "Is, ah, Amy Fox there?" he asked quietly, his voice unusually quiet and lacking in the strength and resolve that Mark had somehow been expecting.

Mark glanced back to the door briefly, before nodding slowly. "Yes, she is," he replied, turning his gaze back to the man before him. "Who should I say wants to see her?"

"Brendan Maguire," he mumbled, pulling his jacket ever tighter to him. "Tell her that I really need to talk to her. That I really need her right now."

Mark thought over Brendan's words before heading back into the station, closing the door behind him and leaving Brendan alone again with his thoughts.

---------------------------------

Amy let her hand come to rest on the door handle, staring down at it blindly. She didn't quite know why she had told Mark she'd see Brendan, especially after everything that had happened nearly three years ago. She'd turned him away because of things that had happened so long ago now that it was almost like another lifetime. In fact, it really was. She had long stopped blaming him for not saying anything. He'd seen one gesture that really could have been anything. If she hadn't been so emotional and confused about the abuse and everything else at the time, perhaps she would have realised before she had pushed the only family she had left out of her life.

Finally, realising that she was under PJ and Mark's expectant stares, she turned the handle, removing the only barrier that had kept her separate from the man she had grown up with.

Her mouth dropped open at the sight of Brendan. She had been expecting to see him, but not like this. Not the broken man standing on the other side of the counter. He dug his hands into his pockets, gulping down a mouthful of air at the sight of her. She closed the door slowly behind her and headed around to his side of the counter, approaching them until they stood face-to-face just centimetres apart.

"Brendan," she whispered, just as he said her name in a voice just as soft and full of surprise at her presence.

He nodded slowly, glancing briefly to the world beyond the station doors. "Could we please talk?" he asked slowly, as if mentally assuring himself that each word he said wouldn't turn her away as he had the last time they'd been together. She let out a deep breath before nodding, straightening the black jacket of her suit as he led the way out of the station and to the street outside.


	56. Ep 12: A Kiss Before Dying Pt2

**Part 2**

The cool May air hit their faces, numbing the skin almost instantly. Amy folded her arms across her chest, looking over to Brendan as he walked beside her. He didn't speak, instead, keeping his eyes lowered to the old and worn footpath as they made their way along the street outside the Mt. Thomas police station.

Their surroundings seemed more silent and desolate than they normally would have been, serving only to magnify the uncomfortable awkwardness radiating from them. Finally, Brendan spoke, looking up to his younger cousin and forcing a weak smile. "Happy birthday, by the way."

She paused, doing her best to return the gesture. She shuffled her feet awkwardly, before finally replying. "Thanks."

He nodded for a moment, his expression becoming one of surprise. "You're thirty-three today, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Amy agreed, her weak smile fading into a distracted frown. "So many wasted years…so many wasted moments…"

Brendan nodded sadly, unable to hold back small tears from fogging up his vision. "That's always the way, isn't it?"

Amy sighed as they resumed walking side-by-side, neither quite brave enough to address whatever the real issue was that had brought them back together after almost three years of estrangement. After several minutes of walking in silence, Amy finally stopped, shrugging hopelessly. "Why are you here, Brendan?" she asked, her voice almost attaining a frustrated quality. "Why are you suddenly wanting to see me after nearly three years of not even trying to find me? And don't tell me it's because you wanted to wish me happy birthday."

He drew in a deep breath, trying his hardest to meet her gaze without his resolve breaking into pieces around him. Without him even saying a word, Amy immediately regretting taking such a harsh tone. Whatever he wanted to see her about, it wasn't good.

"It's about Megan," he told her in a voice that almost broke under the weight of teary sobs. Amy's expression softened at his tone, her heart breaking inside her chest. Something told her that she was right to think of him as a broken man. "She's…she's, well…she's sick. Dying."

Her eyes widened at his words, her head shaking as she desperately sought out the words to somehow soothe her cousin, but there didn't seem to be any. All she could manage was a barely audible, stuttered reply. "Dying?" she choked softly.

Brendan nodded, thrusting his fists into his pockets where he clenched his hands so tightly that his knuckles began to turn white. He felt his whole body begin to break under the weight of the heartache to come, as it had so many times before. He let Amy close the distance between them, forcing a weak smile more for her sake than anything else.

"She was diagnosed with breast cancer six months ago," he explained quietly, swallowing down the lump in his throat. "It had already spread and they couldn't do anything about it. She tried chemotherapy, but it just made her feel worse." He began shaking his head, casting his gaze to the cloudy blue sky above them, hot tears finding their way to his eyes despite his best attempts to push them away. "God, Amy, she's going to die and I've got idea about how the hell I'm going to cope with it when she does. What about Chloe? How the hell can I look after her and work at the same time? I've already taken enough time off."

Amy shook her head in disbelief, reaching out instinctively to take Brendan's hand, rubbing it between hers soothingly. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked him, her voice breaking despite the fact that she had only met Megan on a handful of occasions. "I've been here for months now, about six months actually. Why didn't you tell me? I could have been there for you earlier."

He just shrugged, lacking the strength to even try to pull his hand from Amy's. "You were busy," he mumbled dismally. "You had that murder of that copper to deal with. You hate me, anyway. I've only come to you now because I just can't cope anymore."

---------------------------------

Kelly gave a roll of her eyes as she climbed out of the patrol car, retrieving the RBT kit as she approached the car pulled up before them. Joss climbed out, leaning forward on the roof of their car as he watched Kelly open the door of the car in front, guiding the young man inside further off the side of the road. He finally decided to join them.

"Can I have a look at your driver's licence?" Kelly asked, holding out her hand expectantly while the young man produced his old wallet – the kind that usually came free with school bags – and offered out his licence. Kelly looked it over while Joss peered from behind her shoulder. The young man, Vincent Louis, was only a kid, only 17.

Kelly nodded, handing it back to the lanky teenager opposite. He had a mop of straggly blonde hair that hung messily around his face and clear blue eyes that seemed to stare almost vacantly at the world around him. Despite his less than skilled driving efforts earlier, Kelly instinctively liked him. Something told her that Vincent wasn't a bad kid, all in all. She held out the breath tester out to him, giving him the usual spiel and watching as he obeyed quite willingly. Not to her surprise, it came back negative.

"I wouldn't drink," Vincent explained with a slightly too-friendly smile. "Driving means the world to me, I wouldn't do something as stupid as drink and drive."

Kelly laughed weakly at this, handing the breath tester to Joss. "I believe you too, mate," she told him, her mouth twisted into a genuine smile. "Look, we'll let you off with a warning this time, but take it easy, alright?"

Vincent nodded, his smile broadening into a wide grin. "Of course!" he replied cheerfully. "You hear so much about P-platers who wrap themselves around a tree, I definitely don't want to end up there, Constable O'Rourke."

She nodded before clapping him kindly on the shoulder and heading back to the patrol car, watching Vincent expectantly as he returned to his car and drove back onto the road, this time without his zig-zag pattern. Joss chuckled to himself as he climbed into the passenger side of the car, looking over to Kelly, who seemed a little dazed. "He's certainly enthusiastic," he told her.

Kelly nodded thoughtfully in agreement, before starting the car again. Her instincts were telling her that they'd be meeting Vincent Louis again before day's end. She was just hoping that he wouldn't be wrapped around a tree when they did.

---------------------------------

Kari flopped down in one of the mess room chairs, burying her face in one hand while using the other to brush hair back from her eyes. She was acutely aware of Alex standing over her, his arms folded tightly across his Victoria Police jacket and his expression sympathetic. She didn't like feeling so weak and useless in front of those she knew. It was something she had learnt quickly in Drover's Creek – you couldn't back down. Especially when you were not only a female copper, but Japanese as well in a town that still didn't seem to have gotten over World War II.

He knelt down, placing a gentle hand on her knee. He gave it a gentle squeeze, before reaching up with his hand to caress her cheek. She seemed uneasy under his touch, her pale skin beginning to come up in goose bumps.

"Please tell me what's wrong," he whispered, his voice dropping to little more than a whisper. Kari let her dark eyes – weak and frightened as opposed to their usual strong determination – meet Alex's, her breath coming in small gasps. Opening up to Alex always felt so difficult.

He moved closer to her, their faces nearly touching as he continued to caress her cheek, pushing dark strands of hair back behind her ear. His skin felt rough on her own. She reached up with her hair, placing it on top of Alex's. The silence between them was almost deafening, yet it was somehow magical. Electric.

Alex nodded to her, as if he was somehow trying to tell her something. Though his lips never moved, she understood exactly what it was. She nodded in reply, only for the door to burst open and Mark Jacobs to step through the doorway.

Alex jumped away, straightening his jacket while Kari lowered her face, brushing hair back nervously as she tried to hide the blush in her cheeks. Mark looked from one to the other, trying desperately to stop his mind from travelling to just what the pair had been doing just moments before.

"Ah, Alex…" he trailed off, handing a sheet of notepaper to him. Alex looked down at it, his heart still racing, narrowing his eyes to decipher the scrawled writing on it. "We've got a, ah, cold burg you might want to have a look at."

Mark looked over to Kari, his expression softening at the sight of his younger colleague looking close to tears. "I can call Kelly and Joss back to the station, if you'd like…"

Alex shook his head, stuffing the note into his pocket and nodding over to Kari. "Nah," he replied, "I've got someone to go with right here."

---------------------------------

PJ looked up to Amy in surprise as she returned to the CI office, her face pale and each step slow as though she were in some kind of trance. She pulled her chair out from her desk, sitting down without a word and staring over her paperwork blindly. PJ nodded to himself as he rose to his feet and perched himself on the corner of Amy's desk. She looked up, her eyes finally filling with the first stage of tears as the shock of what Brendan had told her started to wear off.

"What did Brendan want?" PJ asked quietly, leaning and lowering his voice, despite the fact that there was no one in the muster room to overhear. "He looked…"

Amy nodded in agreement with what PJ had said. "Different," she finished for him, running a hand back through her brown hair before passing it across her eyes. She finally looked back to PJ, shaking her head for a lack of anything better. "His wife is dying, Peej," she explained, her voice scarcely more than a whisper. "She was diagnosed with breast cancer at about the same time I got back to town. It's spread; they can't do anything about it…" She gulped down the tears of desperation and confusion that were threatening to overwhelm her and swallow her whole. "He wants me to help him. With…with Chloe and…and Megan."

PJ nodded, lowering his gaze as he reached out to give her shoulder an encouraging squeeze. "So what are you going to do?" he probed gently.

She looked away, biting her bottom lip distractedly. She began to brush hair away back behind her ear, sighing dismally. "He needs my help," she told him quietly. "No matter what I think of him. No matter how badly we've gotten along over the years."

PJ climbed to his feet, bending down to plant a soft and tender kiss on Amy's lips. She returned his gesture, reaching out with her hands to wrap her arms around his neck and hold him to her momentarily. Finally they broke apart, PJ still stroking her cheek with the back of her hand.

"He wants me to come around for dinner tonight," Amy explained quietly, "he said that he's got enough casserole from the old lady next door to last him a lifetime and he may as well use it."

He chuckled lightly, sticking his hands in the pockets of his dark pants. "Bloody old ladies and their bloody casseroles," he told her with a gentle smile, "I've gotten my fair share of them over the years – sweet old dears thinking that all my problems will go away as long as I've got a Tupperware container of their leftovers in the fridge."

Amy laughed in response, a tear spilling over and rolling down her cheek. "Yeah," she replied, managing a weak attempt at a smile. PJ turned to head back to his desk. "PJ?" she asked his retreating back. He turned back to her, looking at her in curiosity and expectancy. "I…I want you to come with me…tonight, I mean. When I go to Brendan's." She paused, her expression becoming increasingly uncomfortable. "Some moral support would be nice."

PJ didn't even have to think about his answer before nodding. "Of course I'll come," he replied with a cheeky smile and a wink at Amy. "I wouldn't miss leftover sympathy casserole for the world."


	57. Ep 12: A Kiss Before Dying Pt3

**Part 3**

Alex tossed his police clipboard down to his desk as he looked up to Kari, watching his younger colleague with concern and curiosity as she returned to her desk, busying herself half-heartedly with her computer. He narrowed his eyes, still trying to decide the best way to force her to open up to him. "Kari…"

She shook her head, her fingers dancing across the computer keyboard. "I've got to check out the car that was nicked at that cold burg," she explained in monotone, "I don't have time for this right now."

Alex nodded, sitting back down at his desk and leaning forward to rest his chin in his hand. "Alright," he agreed reluctantly, before mumbling under his breath, "we'll talk about this later."

---------------------------------

Chris grabbed a couple of soft drinks from the fridge, passing them across the bar to the two constables sitting opposite, their regular casual jackets pulled tightly around their blue police shirts. Kelly and Joss took the drinks with grateful smiles.

"So how was the world of Mt. Thomas policing today?" Chris asked, leaning across the bar to the young police officers before her. Kelly opened her bottle of Coca-Cola, gulping down a quick mouthful.

"We spent most of the day out on patrol," she replied, while Joss came in on cue with an annoyed roll of his eyes. "We ran into a P-plater – Vincent, I think his name was. He was all over the road, I'm just glad that we didn't run into him wrapped around a tree or something."

The publican nodded thoughtfully, before her face lit up in remembrance. "Vincent?" she queried. "That wouldn't be Vincent Louis, would it?"

Joss nodded in reply. "Yeah…why, you know him?"

"His dad used to be one of my suppliers," Chris explained thoughtfully, distractedly playing with one of her fiery red curls.

"Used to be?" Kelly asked.

"Yeah," she continued with a sad nod. "He was killed in a truck accident about three years ago now. He was trying to avoid hitting some drunk driver on the wrong side of the road and his truck rolled. He was always very proud of Vincent, always singing his praises. I didn't think he would have been able to drive, though."

Kelly narrowed her eyes, sharing a puzzled glance with Joss. He shrugged as the pair returned their gazes to Chris. "What do you mean?"

"He was born with a fairly mild form of cerebral palsy," Chris elaborated, "Drew – Vincent's dad – told me that he'd probably never be able to drive, not that it ever stopped Vincent from wanting to. I remember when he was at knee height and playing with his toy cars…"

"So he physically shouldn't be driving?" Kelly queried, raising an eyebrow in surprise. Chris nodded in reply, before turning away to serve another of her customers. Kelly turned to Joss, the pair sharing a thoughtful moment of reflection. "I think we need to do something here before that poor kid kills himself or someone else."

---------------------------------

Amy felt her knees shake slightly as she stood on the doorstep of Brendan Maguire's house, wringing her hands together and trying to muster up the courage to ring the doorbell. PJ stood just over her shoulder, nursing a bottle of red wine wrapped in a brown paper bag in one arm and a blue plastic bag of Chinese food in the other.

He stared at her thoughtfully, letting a weak smile cross his lips. "So are we standing out in the cold all night or are we going inside?" he asked playfully, causing Amy to spin to face him, tears of fear and uncertainty shining in her emerald eyes.

"I know Brendan needs me and…and Chloe does too, but…" she trailed off as she let PJ draw closer, enveloping her in his strong arms and pulling her close. She could feel the warmth of his body against her chest and the warmth of the Chinese food at her back. "It's so damn hard," she admitted, forcing a weak smile as she looked up to meet PJ's eyes.

He smiled down at her, their lips meeting in a tender moment of passion that seemed to warm both of them against the cold May wind instantly. "Hey," he soothed as they broke apart, running the back of his hand against her wind-bitten cheek. "It'll be fine. I'll be here."

She nodded, pulling away from the warmth of his body and finally ringing the doorbell before pulling her hands back into the slightly too-long arms of the mustard coloured coat PJ had given her for Christmas and waiting expectantly for the door to open.

It finally spun open to reveal a crack of light and the familiar, yet distinctively older face of Chloe Maguire standing in the doorway, a smile spreading across her face at the sight of Amy standing before her. "Aunty Amy," she said, a note of excitement entering her voice. Amy felt her cheeks grow hot and she nodded weakly.

"Hi Chloe," she replied, her voice oddly quiet and uneasy. "It's been…"

"Years," Chloe finished, opening the door wide and looking PJ up and down. Amy found herself once again remembering her birthday as she realised that Chloe would be in her teens now. So much time had passed. Wasted time. "Dad said you'd be coming. He didn't mention anything about him though…"

PJ looked away, red blush of uneasiness creeping into his features. He was unable to hide a smile as Amy replied. "This is PJ Hasham," she explained, gesturing towards him with her hand. "He's a colleague and a very good friend of mine."

Chloe laughed weakly at this, yet her eyes still retained a darkness about them, a kind of maturity Amy recognised instantly as the sort she had attained herself. Growing up under pressure, growing up too quickly. "Sure," she responded, almost cheekily, "that's what they all say."

As Chloe stepped away from the doorway and motioned for the pair to enter, Amy shot PJ a look of surprise. He simply shrugged. Was it that obvious?

Brendan entered the entrance area, brushing away a stray tear with the back of his hand and forcing as broad a grin as he possibly could for the sake of his daughter and their guests. "Amy," he greeted, before turning to PJ and narrowing his eyes as he tried to remember. "You're that other detective, aren't you?" he asked with uncertainty.

PJ nodded, moving to extend a hand, but changing his mind after remembering the wine and Chinese he was holding. "Yeah," he replied with a smile. "PJ Hasham. It's nice to get to meet you in a, ah, different context."

"You didn't have to bring anything," Brendan continued, nodding towards the bags in PJ's arms. "I already told you that I have enough casserole to feed the whole of Mt. Thomas for at least a month or two."

Amy forced a weak smile, shuffling her feet awkwardly. "Yeah," she agreed quietly, "but we thought you could do with something different for one night."

Her cousin nodded, reaching out to take the bags from PJ's arms. "Thanks," he told her with a weak and half-hearted smile. "Come through, Megan's in the living room on the couch."

Brendan turned and headed down the hallway towards the living room with Chloe following in hot pursuit. Amy and PJ remained motionless for several seconds, before finally PJ looked down to the woman at his side. "You alright?"

"Yeah," she replied distractedly, looking up to him with a weak attempt at a smile. "It's just…hard."

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, planting a soft kiss on her cheek as they followed Brendan and Chloe through to the living room. The sight that greeted them was nothing less than heart-wrenching.

Amy pulled away from PJ, her eyes widening in surprise. She had only met Megan on a handful of occasions, but she was a fairly good judge of character and she had always picked Megan for a strong and determined kind of the woman, the sort of person who wouldn't settle for weakness from herself. Yet she was lying on the couch in the Maguire's living room, blankets wrapped tightly around her and several pillows arranged under her head.

Her tired and pale face lit up at the sight of Brendan as he let down to give her a tender kiss on her lips. He brushed hair away from her face in a moment that brought tears to Amy and PJ's eyes. Chloe shuffled her weight awkwardly from foot to foot, lowering her gaze and brushing at her cheek with the back of her hand. Chloe's uneasiness didn't escape Amy.

Megan looked past Brendan as he straightened up, her eyes narrowing in contempt. "What's she doing here?" she asked quietly. "I thought you hated her…"

"I'm mending bridges," Brendan replied softly, returning to brushing Megan's hair back from her face. "I can't look after Chloe on my own."

Amy paused, barely catching Brendan and Megan's hushed conversation. She looked up to PJ, biting her bottom lip nervously. He reached down to give her hand a tight squeeze, bringing a tiny hint of a smile to Amy's face.

Brendan looked back to Amy and PJ, his forced smile returning to his lips. "Anyway, I'd better serve up that Chinese, shouldn't I? You two make yourself comfortable."

Chloe headed off down the hallway towards her bedroom, her gaze still low and her body language immediately telling Amy just what was going on. Amy turned to PJ, leaning up to whisper to him. "I'm going to go see what's going on with Chloe…okay? You'll be alright here…"

PJ chuckled softly at Amy's words. "Sure," he replied with a smile. "I'll be fine. You go off and talk to Chloe."

Amy returned PJ's smile, heading off down the hallway after Chloe. Megan followed Amy with a critical gaze before looking up to PJ. "You seem close to her," she said in a weak voice.

He nodded at Megan's words, sitting back in one of the matching lounge chairs next to the couch. He rested his elbows on his knees, wringing his hands together with a slight nervousness. "Yeah," he replied with a distant smile. "She's a great woman. She's so strong and beautiful despite all the shit she's had to face in her life. And…and I love her."

Megan nodded, gingerly using her arms to adjust herself on the couch. She winced in pain, causing PJ's face to fall in concern. "Brendan told me about her," she explained in a quiet and weak voice. "About how they took her in, cared for her and then she shot through without even a card. Then when she had his father charged…well, guess who had to try to care for Chloe's shattered feelings?"

PJ sighed sadly, looking away and fixing his gaze on the stained carpet. He had never really thought about what the abuse allegations would have been doing to Brendan or his family. He'd only ever thought about what they were doing to Amy and how much the memory was hurting her.

"Brendan doesn't hate her anymore," Megan continued. "I know he's scared about what's going to happen with Chloe. He really just wants her help."

---------------------------------

Alex looked up from his computer monitor in alarm at the sound of Kari's chair scraping against the floor. She rose to her feet, tiredly brushing strands of hair aside. She grabbed a file from her desk and headed for the mess room, only for Alex's hand to close tightly around her wrist, stopping her in her tracks.

She looked down to him, her eyes widened in surprise. "Alex…"

"Stop," he told her, climbing to his feet, standing just centimetres from Kari. "I really care about you, you know. And if something's not right, you've got to tell me…"

Kari could feel hot tears finding their way to her eyes, and not for the first time. She shook her head, sending her hair flying around her face. Alex let his hands rise to her cheeks, holding her head steady and looking into her dark eyes. The connection was strong, something that Kari had never felt before.

After several minutes of standing together, their bodies almost touching, Kari finally rose onto tip toe and let her lips press against Alex's, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him close to her. He let his arms drop to her waist in one smooth movement, letting their bodies come together. Neither of them really knew what was going on and it was somehow the last thing on their minds.


	58. Ep 12: A Kiss Before Dying Pt4

**Part 4**

Amy opened the door to Chloe's bedroom, peering inside at to see her niece sitting on her bed, dabbing at her tears eyes with the back of her hand. Amy's face fell as she invited herself inside, closing the door and sitting down beside her, reaching out to give her back a gentle rub.

"I'm sorry," Chloe apologised quickly, using her fingers to ruffle her hair a little bit so it partly obscured her face from Amy's view. "I'll be right in a minute."

Amy gently pushed Chloe's dark hair back behind her ear, her eyes narrowed in sympathy with small and silent tears finding their way down her cheeks. "It's okay, you know," she explained softly, her voice quivering a little, "if you want to talk to someone about this."

"I told you I'm fine," Chloe snapped as she pulled away from her father's cousin, rising to her feet and crossing her room to stand in a far corner, trying to once again hide away from Amy. It was a failure. "It's just…" Chloe turned back to face Amy, shaking her head and waving her arms about in desperation for something to say. "It's just…I miss my Mum, the way she used to be. She's going to die soon and then it'll just be Dad and me and we can't cope like that."

Amy reached out, enveloping her niece into her arms and letting her crumple into tears against her chest. Chloe shouldn't have to be facing this, not now. No one should have to face this.

---------------------------------

Amy, PJ, Brendan and Chloe sat in a semicircle on the floor in front of the couch, each one slowly and uneasily picking at their food with plastic forks or cheap wooden chopsticks, sharing silent glances in between looks towards Megan, who was slowly and painfully nibbling on her food. The silence hanging over them was a horrible, deafening sort that left each one almost shaking with uncertainty.

PJ shifted his crossed legs underneath him and began to stare at his noodles with an odd determination in his eyes. He was the outsider here; it somehow seemed to fall upon him to make conversation. Any kind of conversation would do, just as long as it ended this tension. He looked down at the chopsticks on the carpet in front of him, still wrapped up snugly in a white napkin. He sat his fork aside and picked up the chopsticks instead, trying and ultimately failing to pick up even a large piece of vegetable with them. "Who's stupid idea was it for people to eat with two pieces of wood, anyway?"

The others looked up, staring at him with confusion and almost horror. The situation was serious, so serious that every single one of them was lost for words, yet PJ was attempting to make trivial conversation. Amy met his eyes uneasily, before forcing a weak smile and crawling over to him. She wrapped her arms around him, using her hands to adjust his grip on the chopsticks.

"I can't pick anything up!" PJ continued, unable to make eye contact with the confused trio before him.

Amy looked up to PJ, her smile one that was almost teasing him for his inability to effectively use a pair of chopsticks. "That's because you're not holding them right," she explained, sitting back on her heels and shaking her head as he once again attempted to pick up some noodles, again without any success. She began to laugh, something that seemed to ring out across the room. It brought a genuine smile to PJ's face and he was quick to notice that his expression was mirrored in Brendan's. Amy Fox didn't laugh very often, but when she did, it was an infectious laugh. A bright, cheerful sound that could instantly light the mood.

"Hey!" PJ cried in mock defence of himself. "I'm Lebanese, not Chinese! Do I look like I know how to use chopsticks to you?!"

Just as Brendan and Chloe began to chuckle at the mock argument playing out before them, the food that Megan had been half-heartedly eating fell to the floor with what seemed like a deafening thud. The group turned their heads sharply to see Megan lying lifelessly on the couch, her arm hanging limply so that her fingertips lightly grazed the floor.

"Oh God, no," Brendan mumbled to himself as he scrambled to his feet, half walking and half crawling to his unconscious wife's side. He shook her shoulders gently, only to receive no response. He looked back over his shoulder to the three people sitting behind him, Amy and PJ frozen in shock and Chloe shaking like a leaf. "Someone call a bloody ambulance!"

PJ nodded, climbing to his feet and pulling his mobile from his pocket as he gave Amy's arm a fond squeeze of encouragement. She crawled across the floor to Chloe, pulling the teenage girl into her arms, letting her continue to shake against her chest. She ran her fingers back across Chloe's hair, kissing the top of her head comfortingly.

Somehow this night wasn't quite going the way she'd planned.

---------------------------------

PJ paced the hospital corridor, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his old leather jacket, a scarf wrapped hastily around his neck and shaking slightly against the cold, despite the heating. Amy sat alone in an old plastic chair against the wall, her knees brought up to her chin and her mustard-coloured coat pulled around her like a blanket. She seemed to resemble little more than a child. Brendan and his family always seemed to have that effect on her.

He wandered down the corridor towards her, sitting down on the chair beside her. He reached over to pull her into his arms, kissing the top of her head and brushing strands of soft brown hair away from her cold and pale face. "We all knew this was coming," he reminded her gently, squeezing her arm affectionately. "It's just…"

"Bad timing?" she finished for him, looking up to him with shining green eyes. "It's always bad timing with me, isn't it?" She began shaking her head as she turned to look away from PJ. "I always manage to stuff something up, one way or another."

PJ shook his head, pulling Amy closer to his chest as best the hospital chairs would allow. "Hey," he soothed softly, "you don't stuff things up. Think about all the people you've helped, all the lives you've saved and changed for the better. Mine, for starters."

Amy shook her head again, wanting to pull away, yet somehow lacking the physical and emotional strength to do so. "Today is my thirty-third birthday, Peej," she confessed, looking up to him with silent tears finding their way down her cheeks. "I've wasted thirty-three years of my life and…and I'll never be able to get them back."

PJ's eyes widened in surprise at Amy's words. His expression softened quickly though and he kissed the top of her head again gently. "It's not thirty-three years lost," he told her quietly, "it's thirty-three years gained."

She sighed, staring aimlessly at the bland hospital ceiling. "I've always had an image of what my life would be like, what I wanted to achieve. This is nothing like what I wanted."

He looked away, nodding sadly. He felt for her, he really did. Truth be told, he had the same thoughts running through his head every single day. He wasn't getting any younger himself. However, he was soon jolted from his thoughts by the sight of Brendan emerging from a hospital room, each step slow and deliberate and his eyes showing that his mind was somewhere else.

"Brendan…" Amy began, gently using her arms to climb to her feet, pulling her coat tighter over her shoulders. "How is she?"

Brendan shook his head, letting in hang as his voice wavered and broke. "She's slipped into a coma," he explained in a voice that Amy and PJ barely heard. "They don't think she'll make it to midnight. Jesus…she's my bloody wife! Why the hell can't I stop this?!"

Amy reached out to him, taking his hands in hers and slowly pulling him closer to her body. He finally crumbled, falling into her chest and sobbing like a young child. PJ rose to his feet, watching on from a distance and once again feeling like the outsider. Amy had needed him once upon a time, but did she still need him there when she now had her family beside her?

---------------------------------

Kelly let herself fall beside Joss on the bed, resting her head tiredly against his bare chest. She wrapped an arm across his chest and around his torso, snuggling closer to him and letting his heat wash over her body. It was nights like these that they both lived for. It was almost ironic that the same man she had detested at the academy would one day become the man she slept beside and wanted to continue to sleep beside for as long as she lived.

Joss rose a hand from the bed, letting a fingertip run along her cheekbone before running his fingers back through her long waves of blonde hair. A smile crept across his face. It was hard not to smile when he had sunshine Kelly all to himself.

Almost as though she had sensed the worst possible time, Chris Riley knocked on the door, calling out to them. "Kelly, are you there?"

Kelly rose her head from Joss' chest in alarm, rolling her eyes as her racing heart settled slightly. "Bloody Chris Riley," she cursed in a soft whisper before replying. "Yeah, what's going on?"

"I've got an Inspector Piper Morris on the phone, apparently there's been some kind of accident on St. Davids Road," Chris explained. "The call came through to them and she's been trying to get through to the station for hours before she gave up and called here."

Kelly looked to Joss, the pair sharing a quick glance. The one look said it all. Vincent Louis.

---------------------------------

Alex pulled himself up with his arms as Kari stood in the far corner of the room, pulling her blue police shirt back over her shoulders. He looked away, unable to quite believe what was going on. One second they were engaged in a passionate embrace unlike any he could remember and the next she was pushing him away and crying in the corner while she pulled her uniform back on.

"Kari…"

"Piss off, Alex!" Kari snapped, shaking her head sharply, sending her black hair flying around her face. He climbed to his feet and slowly padded across the room to her, running his hands up and down the tops of her arms. She paused, not pulling away from his touch. "Why the hell couldn't you just leave me alone?"

He shrugged, letting his hands fall away from her silky pale skin and sinking into a chair placed against the nearest wall. He shook his head, looking up at her with sadness in his eyes. "I care about you," he told her softly. "You were upset. I thought…I thought you might have wanted this…"

"You wanted to know what was wrong, right?" she demanded, spinning to face him, her eyes narrowed and filled with upset and fury. "My mother was sick. Really sick. Dying. And I couldn't see her because of all the shit that my family has been drowning in for as long as I can remember. She was the only one who believed in me, she's the reason I've gotten anywhere in this world."

His eyes filled with sympathy. "Aw, Kari…"

"She died last night," Kari snapped in reply, a single tear finding its way down her cheeks. "She slipped into a coma and never regained consciousness again. I never got to say goodbye."

"I know how that feels…" Alex told her, looking down to his hands where he was wringing them in his lap. "When Suse…"

Kari sighed, grabbing her jacket, and heading for the door. She glared at Alex coldly. "I thought this…this…whatever it is…I thought it was real. I thought this might have been the real thing."

"And maybe it is!" Alex pleaded, rising to his feet and reaching out to grab hold of her wrist. She yanked it away from his grasp just as quickly.

"You're not over her, are you?" she asked him, her voice little more than a hoarse whisper. He opened his mouth to argue, but no words emerged. "You called me Susie, Alex. You were sleeping with me, but you were dreaming of her."

With tears streaming down her cheeks and her words bringing an awkward silence between them, Kari turned to leave, closing Alex's bedroom door softly behind her as she went.


	59. Ep 12: A Kiss Before Dying Pt5

**Part 5**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Torn"_ by Natalie Imbruglia.

Kelly climbed out of the patrol car, leaving the door hanging open behind her as she took off towards the small black Holden lying on its roof by the side of the road, smashed glass and crushed metal scattered over the ground nearby. Joss followed her, taking more care to slam his door shut as he jogged along behind Kelly in the darkened night, finally stopping at the side of the car.

"Bloody hell…" Kelly whispered, kneeling down and reaching through the smashed driver's side window to check Vincent Louis' pulse. Her expression seemed to brighten instantly as she looked up to him, gesturing vaguely towards the patrol car parked askew off the side of the road. "Get an ambulance out here now."

Joss nodded, the cold night air whipping harshly at his skin as he returned to the patrol car, climbing into Kelly's seat and grabbing the radio with his hand. He watched on distractedly as Kelly stayed by Vincent's side, talking to the unconscious teen in a soft and soothing tone. Her attempts to tell him that everything would be fine, somehow.

"At least he's still breathing," Joss mumbled, more for his sake than anything else as he finished the call and returned the radio to its holder, running a slightly shaking hand back through his short dark hair. Nearly four years in the job and it didn't get any easier.

---------------------------------

PJ leant against the cold hospital wall, staring blindly down into his seventh coffee in the last hour. Brendan had invited Amy into Megan's hospital room to be with them during his wife's final moments, leaving him alone in a building that he had always associated with death and pain. He'd lost count of the number of times he had been here, waiting for either a miracle or a tragedy. As he continued to stare down into his coffee, he began to mentally count them off. There was that time Maggie had been mysteriously ill and they couldn't work out why, there was his mother's death, the time Jo had been in a car accident and, more recently, the time Amy had been attacked at the station. The pain and anxiousness that he had felt all those times began to return, forming an unpleasant lump in his throat.

Sophie Ash suddenly appeared at his side, wrapping her white coat tighter around her slender frame. She brushed a strand of blonde hair back behind her ear and reached out, closing her hand around his forearm and bringing a small smile to her lips. PJ looked down to her in surprise, doing his best to return her smile. He eventually tore his gaze away, sighing in defeat. "What kind of a world is this?" he demanded of nobody in particular. He looked back to Sophie, a weak chuckle escaping his lips. "You must see this every bloody day…"

"Yeah, I do," she admitted, "I do. It doesn't get any easier, trust me. Good people taken before their time and then good people struggling to comprehend why the hell things like this happen." She gave his arm a squeeze of solidarity and comfort, before turning on her heel and disappearing about as quickly as she had come. The weak smile on his lips faded away as he stared after her, before turning his attention back to his coffee.

"If only life were as stable as the coffee bean," he told himself before downing a large mouthful, almost coughing it back up in surprise. In the time he had spent reflecting on life's cruelties, his coffee had gone stone cold.

A door down the corridor creaked open, stirring PJ's attention away from the coffee and Sophie's words and towards the woman he loved wandering aimlessly in his direction. Her expression was blank and her eyes dark. Each step was slow and her entire body language conveyed a sense of disbelief. He sat the coffee down on a chair nearby and met her half way, reaching out to take her hands gently. Silence hovered between them momentarily before she suddenly fell into his arms, tightening her grip on his jacket, as silent tears pricked their way down her pale cheeks.

"She's gone," she choked in a voice that PJ barely heard, "Megan just died."

PJ tightened his arms around her, running a hand back through her hair as her tears continued to slowly and silently fall, forming dark pools on his shirt. He opened his mouth to offer some words of comfort – anything, really – but nothing came. He eventually settled for a soft kiss against her forehead and tightening his grip on her, pulling her closer to his chest and his heart.

---------------------------------

Kari stared out the mess room window at the police station, the bright orange sunrise beyond contrasting with the dark bags under her eyes and her tear stained cheeks. She'd spent much of the night hiding out at the station, desperately trying to assess what she was going to do with her future now. She and Alex certainly couldn't work together again, certainly not after this. Things would be way too complicated and even just thinking about his name made her heart ache in her chest in a way that she thought it never could. The only person she considered to be her friend in this whole town had hurt her, taken her heart from her chest and ripped it into tiny little pieces in front of her.

_Illusion never changed into something real_

_I'm wide awake and I can see the perfect sky is torn_

She closed her eyes at the sound of someone entering the police station, each sound of heavy footfalls sending shivers of fear through her heart. She knew those footsteps well, she'd spent so many days listening out for them, for the sound of her best friend and secret crush coming towards her. She knew that Alex Kirby had been a different man since the station siege – in fact, that was the first thing she learnt about anyone at the police station – but she still couldn't help the way she felt. He made her feel appreciated and wanted. No one had ever made her feel that way before in her entire life. She had always been an asset to be bought and sold, or just a copper. Alex had seen the person behind the badge and behind her family. He'd seen her. Perhaps he'd even loved her. But she'd never know as long as he was still wanting nothing more than Susie Raynor at his side.

Alex entered the mess room, his bag dropped from where it was slung over one shoulder as his eyes widened. He paused, looking down to his feet and shuffling them. He could look her in the eye, not when he knew very well what he'd done to her. "Kari…"

"Don't worry about it, Alex," she told him curtly as she dumped her coffee cup in the sink and headed over to the bag sitting on the mess room table. "You won't have to worry about me for much longer. As soon as Mark comes in, I'll be gone."

His mouth dropped open at her words and his bag hit the floor with a soft thud. "What do you mean, gone?" he demanded, his voice catching in his throat. "You're not leaving…"

She nodded, slinging her bag over her shoulder as she tucked stray strands of silky dark hair back behind her ear. "What do you think I mean, Alex?" she replied. "I can't…just pretend that last night didn't happen, that…what I feel isn't there."

"We can work on it, then," Alex pleaded, taking several slow steps towards her. "We can work through this, I'll talk to someone about Suse, I promise…"

"No, you won't," she told him with a shake of her head. Tears formed in her red eyes as she desperately tried to blink them away. "Susie Raynor was the woman you loved and wanted to spend the rest of your life with. You were willing to let your best mate have her just so she could be happy, I've heard the stories. You can't just turn that off and get over it, Alex. You'd be naïve to even begin to think you can."

Alex shook his head, struggling with his own hot salty tears. "It can be done," he reminded her in a soft and shaky voice. "PJ lost two fiancés before he started dating Amy, I can move on from Suse, I promise you Kari. I'll do whatever it takes."

"I can't wait, Alex," she told him, a painful sob escaping her body. "You hurt me very badly last night. I can't sit around, waiting for you and then only ever being second best to a dead woman. I lost the only person who ever saw me as me last night, Alex. We can't go back to what our friendship used to be like. We just can't. Everything's changed."

He paused, nodding as he lowered his gaze and slowly sank into the closest chair. "Where are you going?" he asked her numbly.

She drew in a deep breath to steady herself before finally speaking in a croaky and strained voice. "There's a small town up near the New South Wales border. A two copper station. They've had a bit of a population increase over the last few years and they're looking for a third police officer to join them. With my experience in small country towns, they accepted me on the spot."

Alex just shook his head, barely able to contain sobs of his own. "You can't just leave me…leave us…you're the only friend I've got now that Suse…"

"That's just it," Kari replied as she headed for the door. She spun back to face him, her eyes conveying the true pain. In the brief second that Alex let their eyes meet, he realised just what he'd done to her. He'd shattered every little piece of her self-esteem and her heart. "Susie Raynor is just a memory. She's a memory which is perfect and is just going to keep on getting more and more perfect as the days go by. How can I compete against that kind of perfection?"

She paused, swallowing down the lump in her throat as best she could. "I'm real, Alex. I'm here, I'm now and I'm not perfect. I've got faults and you were the first person to see who I really am and appreciate me for that. And I thank you for making me realise that I'm not such a bad person underneath my family and the badge. But this is the end."

Alex slowly rose to his feet, numbly crossing the room so that they were standing just centimetres apart. Kari could even feel his body heat. "The end?" Alex asked in disbelief, his eyes widening even further.

Kari nodded. "Goodbye, Alex," she told him, turning to leave and closing the mess room door behind her. Alex stared at the door as Kari's footsteps headed down the corridor and towards the main station. He was sure that he could hear her voice as she spoke to someone, perhaps Mark, in the muster room. The pain in her voice echoed throughout the building, sending stabs of pain through his chest. He'd done that to her. He'd broken her heart and left her shattered and alone.

"I'm sorry, Kari," he whispered, returning to the chair he had been sitting in just moments before and burying his face in his hands. But he knew that, just like with Susie Raynor all those months ago, he was once again too late. Just like with Susie, he'd made the assumption that Kari would always be there and, just like with Susie, he was wrong.

_You're a little late_

_I'm already torn_

---------------------------------

PJ sat back in the couch at Brendan's house, using the remote control to flick through the TV channels, barely stopping at each one to even see what was on. Each time he finished, he returned to the beginning, pausing only occasionally to brush an idle tear from his cheek. Amy was off with Brendan and Chloe in one of the bedrooms, probably trying to help them deal with their grief. It almost seemed unfair that Brendan would never help Amy during her times of need, yet when he needed her, she helped him without question. Then again, he reminded himself, family was a complicated thing.

He sat the remote down quickly in instinct at the sound of a door opening and then being closed as Amy appeared in the hallway and approached the couch. She took up a seat next to PJ wordlessly, wringing her hands in her lap. He looked over to her, his eyes softening in sympathy and kindness, an expression that he hoped Amy noticed. She remained silent for several minutes, before finally letting the words croak forward from her lips. "Chloe's cried herself to sleep," she explained, her emerald eyes shining with tears. PJ continued to stare at her with his gentle blue eyes, probing for more. "Brendan just rang Megan's parents over in Perth. He's decided to take some time off work and fly over there with Chloe today, try to get their heads around it, you know…"

"Yeah," PJ replied with a nod and a small encouraging smile, "I know."

Amy nodded weakly, half-heartedly attempting to return PJ's gesture. "And…and he's invited me to go with them."

The words echoed through PJ's head as his mouth dropped open and all traces of his previous smile vanished from his face. "And what did you say?" he finally managed to reply after several seconds of desperately searching for something to say.

She shrugged, sighing deeply. "I said yes," she told PJ in an emotionless voice that sent chills through PJ's spine. Realising she was under PJ's expectant stare of disbelief, she found herself struggling to continue. "Brendan and I need to mend some bridges and…and…and Chloe needs support right now. They both do. And…and…"

"How long are you going to be gone?" he asked, reprimanding himself internally for his snappy tone. He didn't like snapping at Amy and he knew that this morning was certainly not the time for it.

Amy shrugged again, this time in hopelessness as tears clouded her eyes anew. "I really don't know, Peej," she replied. "As long as they want me there, I guess."

PJ nodded, reaching out to pull her close to his chest and kissing her forehead tenderly. He rubbed her back soothingly, resting his chin on top of her head as he stared blindly across the room at the cream-coloured wall opposite. It took everything he had to tell himself that it wouldn't be too long before he had Amy back in his arms when his heart was breaking in his chest.

---------------------------------

Vincent Louis opened his eyes slowly, a headache hitting him hard and fast as he awoke to find himself lying in a hospital bed, looking up at the concerned face of Constable Kelly O'Rourke.

Kelly reached out, taking his head gently in hers while Joss watched on from the other side of the hospital bed. "It's okay," she soothed, with a soft smile. "You're in the Mt. Thomas Hospital. You've been involved in a car accident."

Vincent shook his head, reaching back to grab at it weakly. "What happened?"

"It looks like you rolled your car, mate," Joss explained, his voice sympathetic. "You were pretty lucky to have gotten out of there alive."

The teenager shook his head, massaging his temples with his hands. Kelly looked across the bed to meet Joss' gaze, the pair each appreciating how lucky they really were right now that they were in a hospital ward and not by a slab in the morgue.

"We spoke to one of your father's customers, Chris Riley," Kelly continued in a gentle, yet probing, tone. "She owns the Imperial Hotel. Anyway, she told us about your cerebral palsy…"

Vincent lowered his hands in shock at Kelly's words. "And I guess she told you that I'm not meant to be driving, did she?"

"Mate…nothing's worth killing yourself for, even driving a car," Joss pointed out. "Trust me, I've seen enough kids killed on the road to not want you to be one of the next ones we find."

Kelly paused, thinking momentarily before finally, the words came to her. "What about your poor mum?" she asked Vincent softly. "She's already lost her husband, I don't think she could handle losing a son too. Surely driving isn't worth that much to you."

Vincent thought over Kelly and Joss' arguments for a moment before nodding in agreement. "Yeah," he mumbled with a sigh. "I guess not."

---------------------------------

Alex sat back against the bench in the mess room, silent tears still making their way down his cheeks. Senior Constable Kari Izumi was now long gone and was probably an hour or two out of town by now. He tried to tell himself that she wasn't just running away, that she was doing this for another reason other than what had happened last night, but he knew that wasn't true. He'd broken her heart because of Susie Raynor, because he couldn't find it within himself to move on. He was choosing to live with a "perfect memory", as Kari had described it, rather than with a woman in his own world who he cared about dearly and who loved him back.

He knew what Susie would say if she was still around. She'd be nailing his arse to the wall by now, letting him really know how much pain he'd just put a really nice girl through. He'd not only hurt Kari and let himself down, but he'd let Susie down in the process.

The mess room door creaked open, causing Alex to shake his head in annoyance. "Piss off," he mumbled, his voice little more than a hoarse mumble. "I'm not playing Sergeant today."

PJ Hasham stared down at Alex through his own raw red eyes, his mouth dropping open in disbelief at the sight before him. "Mate, what happened to you?" he asked as he closed the door as an afterthought. "You look about as bad as I feel."

Alex looked up to PJ, bringing his knees to his chest and sighing at the sight of the detective looking down upon him. "You've got great timing, you know that?" he told him, before finally shrugging and patting the floor next to him. "Take a seat, if you want."

PJ sank to the floor beside Alex, trying his hardest to push his own pain aside as he stared at Alex in sympathy. "What happened?"

"Kari's…Kari's gone." Alex told him simply, barely able to force the words from his mouth. "We slept together last night and I drove her away by calling her Susie in a moment of passion. She's accepted a posting elsewhere because I'm still in love with a dead woman." Alex turned to PJ, his own mouth dropping open at the sight of the detective sitting next to him, looking almost as bad as he did. "What happened to you, anyway?"

"Amy's gone too," PJ explained with a helpless shrug as tears began to overwhelm him. He couldn't help the sobs overtaking him. "Her cousin's wife died in the middle of the night and she's flying over to Perth with him and his daughter to visit the parents. She doesn't know when she'll be back and…" PJ began shaking his head, his whole body trembling slightly as feelings of uncertainty and fear began to take control of him. "And…I don't even know if she'll be back or if she even needs me in her life anymore now that she's got her family back…"

Alex paused, nodding to himself at PJ's words. He finally reached out, pulling PJ into the best blokey hug that he could manage in the circumstances. Words didn't seem to be enough to describe what had happened over the last twenty-four hours. Perhaps they never would be.


	60. Ep 13: Her Hero Pt1

**Episode 13: "Her Hero"**

_**Summary: **Returning from a month and a half away in Perth, Amy returns to Mt. Thomas, only to find herself thrown headfirst into the investigation of the rape of a close friend. PJ fears for Alex's state of mind following Kari's departure, which is further confirmed when he allows himself to be implicated in a crime._

**Part 1**

Lyrics in this part come from _"By My Side" _by INXS.

PJ sat in the driver's seat on the CI car, his body on autopilot as his mind wandered away from him for the umpteenth time that morning. It was nearly the middle of July, over a month and a half since the day that Amy and Kari had left Mt. Thomas for their own reasons. They hadn't heard from Kari since she last spoke to Mark at the station and, given what Alex had told him, PJ honestly wouldn't have been surprised if they didn't hear from her again. It was Amy that troubled him.

She had called him when she, Brendan and Chloe had touched down in Perth to let him know that they had arrived safely, but other than that, there had been nothing. Not a phone call, not an email, not even a text message just to say hi. It had been over a month and a half since he'd last had any contact with the woman he loved and it was killing him on the inside. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so heartbroken and lonely. It was an agonising feeling that was tormenting him and leaving him tired and barely coping with day to day life.

Mark looked over from the passenger seat, where he was drumming his fingers distractedly on his knee. He paused, staring at PJ momentarily. "Have you heard from Amy yet?" he asked, somehow automatically knowing what the answer would be. He had to ask, though. Even if not for PJ's sake, then for the sake of Inspector Piper Morris and Amy's boss at St. Davids who were beginning to lose patience with her unexpected leave. He was beginning to run out of excuses for why Amy would be prolonging her absence without any explanation or time of return.

PJ glanced over to Mark, his thoughts momentarily drawn away from Amy, before he finally shook his head. "She's probably just busy with Brendan and Chloe," he explained, half-heartedly trying to make another excuse for her. "I mean, I can understand why…" He paused, remembering that, unlike normal, he didn't understand why Amy was doing this. He normally knew Amy more than she thought he did that he could understand why she did the things she did and could easily excuse what others couldn't, but this wasn't normal. There had only been one other time that he and Amy had been out of contact for so long and that had been when she had moved to Homicide and cut him and Mt. Thomas out of her life entirely for two and a half years.

"I can't keep lying to Piper and your boss over in St. Davids, you know," Mark reminded him in what he hoped was a reasonably sympathetic voice. "If you guys are having troubles in your relationship…"

PJ shook his head, his body returning to autopilot as he stared blankly at the road ahead. "We're not. Or, at least, I thought we weren't." He sighed, shaking his head in despair. "I don't know why she hasn't even called me. What could be happening in Perth to stop her?" PJ forced himself to stop, knowing where he would be going if he continued. He'd gone through this line of thought before, going from trying to excuse Amy's lack of contact, to just wondering, to worrying that the worst had happened to her to stop her from ringing.

He had spent so many hours back late at the station, too scared to go home and face that empty house that seemed to be haunted by Amy's absence, sitting on the internet, going through every single news report he could get his hands on, just checking to make sure that she hadn't been involved in an accident. It frightened him. There was no logical reason for why she hadn't called.

"Maybe she's lost her mobile?" Mark suggesting, hoping to lighten the mood even if just slightly. "Perhaps her luggage got misplaced and she hasn't been getting your calls."

PJ rolled his eyes, just shaking his head at Mark's optimism. "Then why hasn't she made any effort to call me?" he demanded with a shrug. Mark nodded, taking the hint that the conversation was well and truly over, leaving PJ to his own thoughts once again. He found himself staring at the road as they continued towards the police station, biting his bottom lip in an old habit he had subconsciously picked up from Amy. "What the hell is going on?" he asked himself in a soft whisper as small tears found their way to his eyes, and not for the first time.

---------------------------------

Mark opened the door to his office, jumping at the sight of Piper Morris sitting back in his chair, her fingers interlaced behind her head. Her brown hair was pulled back in its usual tight bun, with several ringlets hanging loosely that framed her face. She sat forward as Mark closed the door behind him, looking at her by the dim lighting of the station at night. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, a little too harshly for his liking.

Piper rose to her feet, ushering for Mark to take a seat in one of the chairs opposite his own desk. He sat down, sitting back as casually as he could while his heart beat a mile a minute in his chest. "Where is Senior Detective Amy Fox?" she asked sternly. She gave Mark less than half a second to answer before quickly adding, "And no more repetitive and vague excuses."

He sighed, shrugging as he pulled his jacket tighter around his body. "To be honest," he began, remembering regretfully that Piper Morris knew him better than he really cared for her to, "I don't know. At the end of May, she flew over to Perth with her cousin and his daughter and hasn't been heard from since she arrived. That's all I know."

She nodded, perching herself on the corner of Mark's desk, accidentally knocking over a photograph of Mark and Penny as she did so. "I'm familiar with Amy Fox's policing history, and it's impressive. She's a good police officer with instincts that are second to none and she has always played things straight by the book. She's also never taken leave for longer than a week, so I'm sure you can understand why I'm thinking that this is out of character."

"Yeah, well," Mark replied with a shrug, "you're not the only one wondering what the hell is going on here. If Senior Detective Hasham doesn't know why she hasn't been in contact – which he doesn't – then no one does, least of all me."

Piper nodded. She glanced out to the muster room, her heart slowing at the absence of Mark's colleagues. The only other officer she could see was PJ and he was sitting in the CI office on his own, staring at a photograph sitting on his desk. She looked back to Mark, leaning in closer. "You're a good police officer, Mark," she told him. "I'd hate to see our history get in the way of our careers."

"Your career, you mean," Mark interrupted, mentally cursing himself afterwards. Piper Morris always made any sense of logic or reasoning go right out the window.

She shot Mark a death glare before rising to her feet and straightening her uniform. "We can only pardon this absence for so long, Mark," she reminded him curtly. "If Senior Detective Fox hasn't returned or at least made contact by tomorrow evening, then we'll be forced to take action. Good night."

With those words ringing sharply in Mark's ears, Piper spun on her heel and left, slamming the door shut behind her.

---------------------------------

Chris leant over the bar, staring at PJ with a sympathetic half-smile shining on her face. He made a half-hearted attempt to return the friendly gesture, looking down at the drink that the publican was pushing towards him. "Chrissy," he told her with the brightest tone he could find the strength to muster, "I can't be seen benefiting from the discount suit, can I?"

"It's on the house," she told him, reaching out to place a soothing hand on his forearm. The touch brightened PJ's features slightly, but not by much. "So, no word from Amy, I take it?"

He shook his head; taking the glass from Chris and downing it all in one go. "Perhaps she's not coming back," he told his old friend with a depressed sigh.

Chris shook her head at this suggestion. "No, she wouldn't do that," she reminded him softly. "She loves you to pieces, there's no way she'd just abandon you like this."

"Maybe she's dead, then," he suggested with a dismal shrug as any brightness in his demeanour faded into nothingness. "Maybe that's why she hasn't gotten in contact with me."

She shook her head again, taking the glass from PJ and topping it up again against her better judgement. "Look, don't go thinking that," she told him in a firmer tone. "You're a detective, you would have heard by now if that was the case. You'll hear from her soon, I'll bet you."

PJ shrugged in reply as Chris moved away from him and along the bar to where Kelly was waiting to get drinks for her and Joss, who were having a rather contentious game of pool. Kelly glanced along the bar to PJ, who was downing another glass of scotch. "Poor bugger," she mused, earning a nod from Chris.

"Yeah," Chris agreed with a sad nod. "This isn't like Amy. Even if she didn't want to talk to PJ, at least she would have spoken to Mark about work. I just hope she shows up soon, if she doesn't, she'll be in deep shit."

Kelly nodded, taking the drinks from Chris. As she turned to go, the patron sitting next to her reached out to grab her wrist. She nearly dropped the drinks in surprise. She glared over at the man in horror, taking him in slowly. He had matted, wind-swept blonde hair pressed down underneath an old Mudlarks beanie and was wearing some old footy jumper that the colours had faded from.

"Let me go," Kelly hissed at him, yanking her arm away. The man watched her as she left, raising his eyebrows in approval. Just at that second, Chris brought her palm down hard against the bar, causing the man to jump in shock.

"You keep your eyes off that girl or you'll be barred for life, you got me?" Chris warned him threateningly, earning a meek nod in reply.

---------------------------------

Kelly gulped down the last of her drink, looking down into her empty glass while Joss lined up another shot and missed horribly. Her head snapped up at the sight of him slumped over the pool table, hitting his forehead against it in defeat. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!" he cursed, each word timed with the banging of his head.

She reached over, pulling him back up as she laughed brightly at his failure. "Well, suffer!" she teased him, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him close for a long kiss. She instantly pulled away, glancing over to the bar to make sure that Chris hadn't caught them out as she almost had at least twice before. Fortunately, the publican was busy arguing with a very drunk Tony Timms over near the door.

"That was close," Joss observed, earning a teasing slap to the back of his head for his troubles. Kelly laughed, reaching down into her pocket and drawing out her car keys.

"I think I'll go grab my jacket from my car," she explained, placing a soft hand on his arm. "It's getting cold in here."

Joss nodded, picking up his own drink and gulping down a mouthful as Kelly slipped past Chris and Tony Timms and out into the cold July night.

---------------------------------

Kelly wrapped her arms around her torso as the wind whipped at her skin, blowing strands of blonde hair back from her face. The Imperial car park was silent, almost too silent for Kelly's liking. She quickly dismissed it as the usual country peace and continued to make her way towards her car, only for a sweaty, strong hand to close over her mouth, pulling her into the arms of a strong, muscly man that scared the living daylights out of her.

She looked up and for a fleeting moment, she caught sight of the man's face. It was familiar. "You?" she mumbled, her voice stifled by the hand over her mouth. However, she was quickly plunged into darkness when something soft was pulled over her face and she was thrown hard to the ground.

She instinctively knew that whatever was about to happen wouldn't be good and that there was no one there to save her now.

---------------------------------

PJ traced small circles on the towel lying along the bar of the Imperial Hotel, half-heartedly weighing up whether or not to retire home and attempt once again to sleep without Amy lying beside him. For all the time he had spent in the aftermath of Jo's death promising not to let himself get so involved with someone again, he'd forgotten it all very quickly. And now he was going through that same old pain.

_I wish you were_

_By my side_

The door to the public bar was suddenly thrown open, sending the cold night wind rushing in. It hit PJ hard where he sat at the bar, causing him to turn in surprise and mild interest to whoever had entered. His heart suddenly skipped several beats in his chest at the sight of the woman standing in the doorway, her brown hair pulled back into a matted ponytail with heavy dark bags under her alarmed emerald green eyes. She scanned the public bar, before racing over to PJ. Amy Fox.

He opened his mouth to say something, but Amy didn't give him the chance. She gestured wildly back outside, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the bar and his drink. "Peej!" she pleaded in a shaking and wobbling voice. "You have to help me!"

"Help you?" he asked in an alcohol and sleep deprivation induced confusion. "Help you with what? What's going on here?"

Amy continued to pull him until he eventually caved in and climbed up from his stool. He yanked his arm away from hers, shaking his head in misunderstanding. Amy felt her whole body tremble as she once again motioned outside, tears of fear threatening to overwhelm her. "It's Kelly," she explained in a distraught and highly-strung voice. "Something's happened to her."


	61. Ep 13: Her Hero Pt2

**Part 2**

Amy tore across the car park, leaving PJ barely able to keep up with her before finally coming to a stop over near an alleyway. His heart sank sickeningly in his chest at the sight of Kelly lying on her side, bloody pooling underneath her head and her brand new bright pink skirt torn and dirty. Her usually bright blonde hair was lying messily and knotted around her head and her beautiful eyes were closed tightly.

Amy knelt down beside Kelly, rubbing at the younger woman's arm in a futile attempt to try to keep her warm. "My coat's still in my suitcase," she explained, her tone telling PJ that she was working on autopilot. "We need to keep her warm."

PJ nodded, slipping his leather jacket off his shoulders and laying it gently over Kelly's bruised and battered body. He combed several strands of hair back from her eyes before looking back at Amy. It took nearly every tiny bit of strength he had left to not ask her what had been going on over the last month and a half.

"I was coming to the Imperial to catch up with you and I found Kelly lying over here," Amy continued, her voice still wobbling and shaking and her body trembling with the cold and shock. "I didn't realise it was her at first. She had that beanie pulled down over her face." She gestured vaguely to a beanie lying just underneath the light of an overhead lamp.

PJ followed her arm and quickly scampered over to pick it up. He turned it over in his hands, narrowing his eyes as he looked it over. "Mudlarks," he mumbled to himself, tightening his grip on it.

Amy drew in a deep breath as she began to rub Kelly's shoulder underneath PJ's jacket in a small gesture of comfort. "Peej…" she whispered, her voice almost becoming lost in the howl of the cold wind. "I…I think she's been raped."

He looked away from Amy and the beanie and looked Kelly over critically. He felt something in his chest tighten at the thought of somebody hurting their Kelly. She was almost like a little sister to all of them. "Yeah," he agreed, his voice beginning to quaver with a combination of anger and fear. "It does look that way, doesn't it?" He paused, slowly rising to his feet and tightening his grip on the beanie further so that his knuckles began to turn white. "I'll grab an ambulance, okay?"

She nodded, tearing her gaze away from PJ as she continued to soothe Kelly as best she could. There would be hell to pay for whoever had done this; she'd make sure of it.

---------------------------------

Mark hurried along the hospital corridor, apologising over his shoulder to the people he bumped into in his haste. He finally caught sight of Amy and PJ standing outside a hospital room, the tension between them so thick that it could have been cut with a knife. "You're back, Amy," he observed, finally breaking the awkward silence that had fallen over the group.

She nodded to him thoughtfully, shrugging sadly as thoughts of Kelly hit her hard. "Yeah," she replied with a half-hearted smile. "Some welcome. Have you heard anything about how Kelly's doing?"

He shook his head, glancing up to PJ who simply shrugged in reply. "I was hoping you knew something." He paused, thinking suddenly of Joss, who didn't know what on earth was happening, and Alex, who would be at home and probably wallowing in his own self-pity as he had been doing for most of the time lately. "I'll head over to the station and let Alex and Joss know what's going on. You two will call once there's any word, won't you?"

"Of course," Amy replied, biting her bottom lip hopelessly as Mark turned and left, his shoulders hunched and giving her the clear sense of a man without even a glimmer of hope. She suddenly realised what Mark had said and looked up to PJ in curiosity. "What about Kari?" she asked him. "Why didn't he mention her?"

PJ looked down to Amy from where he was leaning against a hospital wall, his heart sinking even further in his chest as he remembered that Amy wouldn't have known about the events between Alex and Kari that had driven her away. "She left Mt. Thomas," he explained in monotone. "She's taken up a posting close to the New South Wales border."

Amy nodded in reply, looking down to her hands as she sank down into a hospital chair and let her head hang in defeat and shame. She had the horrible sensation that history was repeating itself.

Sophie Ash opened the door to the hospital room they had taken Kelly into, peering out through the crack and motioning for them to enter. "She's conscious," she explained softly. "She seems to have a mild concussion, but physically, she should be fine. As for emotionally…" She glanced back to Kelly who was lying on her side, the blankets drawn tightly around her and her body trembling ever so slightly. "We had to sedate her," Sophie continued, tiny tears appearing in her eyes. "We've also taken some DNA samples for you."

"Thanks," PJ replied with a heavy sigh. "Now all we need is someone's to compare it too."

---------------------------------

Joss curled up even tighter in one of the lounge chairs of the Parlour, shaking his head in disbelief as Chris entered, offering him a glass of scotch in one hand while holding one of her own in the other. "Take it," she told him gently. "It'll help."

"What'll help is knowing what the hell is going on," Joss pointed out in a voice that was a little too snappy for his liking. He knew that Chris wasn't to blame. "Why wouldn't they tell me what's happened to Kelly?"

The door opened once again as Mark appeared, tightening the dark jacket of his police uniform as he stopped beside Joss' chair. He reached down to pat the young Constable's shoulder in sympathy, while meeting Chris' gaze with a darkness that told her instantly that this wasn't good.

"We know what happened to Kelly," he began, his voice catching in his throat as he spoke. Joss looked up to him in surprise, silently begging him with his eyes for an explanation. The tears silently rolling down his cheeks told Mark of his pain. "It appears that she was raped in the car park near one of the alleyways."

Joss shook his head, his whole body suddenly going numb. His mind became a blur of thoughts that kept going around and around and stopping all logical reasoning. He was vaguely aware of Chris' cry of despair from several metres away and Mark's form as he slowly guided Chris to a chair and tried to comfort her half-heartedly. Nothing seemed quite real; it was as though everything were just an unpleasant dream that would shatter into nothingness at any moment.

"Who did it?" Joss asked, his voice a sullen monotone. Mark and Chris looked to him, each of them suddenly uneasy. Frustrated with their lack of response, he found his temper rising. "Who the hell did this to her?!"

Mark flinched at Joss' words, shrugging dismally. "We don't know," he admitted regretfully. "PJ and Amy are on it. They're with her at the hospital now."

Joss paused, narrowing his eyes as his mind was momentarily stirred from fears for Kelly. "Amy?" he asked softly. The brief distraction disappeared as quickly as it had come as he suddenly jumped to his feet, heading for the door. "I've got to be with Kel."

Mark looked back to Chris as Joss disappeared, his footsteps becoming harder and faster as he headed towards the car park and his car. "Bloody hell," Mark mumbled, shaking his head at the glimmer of hopeless in Chris' eyes. "How could this happen to Kelly?"

---------------------------------

Amy found her body running on autopilot as she sat down on the chair beside Kelly's bed, reaching out to take her younger colleague's hand in her own and rub it soothingly. Kelly's eyes – red from tears of fear and disbelief – widened at the sight of Amy staring at her in sympathy beside her. "Amy?" she asked, gently raising her head off the pillow to survey the room, not able to meet PJ's gaze for even half a second. "What are you doing here?"

"I got back to town tonight," she explained softly, unable to stop her eyes from clouding over with tears. "I found you in the car park of the Imperial Hotel. Everybody's really worried about you."

Kelly glanced to Amy's hand closed around hers and found herself unable to muster the strength to pull away. Silent tears rolled down her cheek as she drew in a deep breath, already preparing to answer the questions she knew would be asked. "I was at the pub with Joss," she explained, her voice wobbling and breaking. Amy felt tears silently sliding down her cheeks, her heart physically aching at the mere thought of what their sunshine Kelly was going through. "I left to…to get my jacket from my car…I was cold…" She began to shiver, goose bumps rising on her arms. "Suddenly…"

PJ gently approached the bed, reaching over to rub Kelly's shoulder. At the slightest touch of his hand on her skin, she flinched away, staring up at him with an intense fear and hatred that sent shivers down his spine. Amy shot PJ a brief death glare for his actions, before letting her expression soften and turning back to Kelly. "What happened next, Kelly?"

Kelly turned back to Amy, staring at her momentarily in confusion before shaking her head profusely. "I…I…I don't know," she replied, wrapping her arms around her torso. "I don't remember. I couldn't see anything. I'm feeling really tired, can you go please?"

Amy glanced up to PJ briefly, before looking back to Kelly and nodding. She smiled at her in a weak attempt to soothe her. "Sure," she replied, letting encouragement creep into her features. "Just let us know if you need anything, okay?"

At Kelly's small nod of reply, Amy rose to her feet, ushering PJ out of Kelly's hospital room and closing the door softly behind her. PJ turned to her, folding his arms across his chest. Without his leather jacket, he was really starting to feel the cold. "So," he asked her with a deep sigh of disbelief. "What do we do now?"

Amy began to bite her thumbnail thoughtfully, her eyes becoming distant and preoccupied. "We need to talk to Chris and Joss, see if they saw anyone paying Kelly particular attention this evening," she explained. She opened her mouth to continue, only to be interrupted by the sound of a young man tearing down the corridor towards them, ignoring the pleading calls of Sophie Ash following after him.

"Joss?" PJ asked, raising an eyebrow at his younger colleague as he headed for Kelly's room. He grabbed Joss' arm, forcibly holding him back from the door.

Joss tried to jerk his arm away, but PJ's grip was surprisingly strong. "For God's sake, PJ, let me go!" he shouted as Sophie finally caught up with him, folding her arms across her white hospital coat. "I have to see Kelly!"

PJ shook his head, gently pushing Joss away while Amy and Sophie watched on with mirrored expressions of sadness and pain. "Mate," PJ explained as he squeezed Joss' shoulder in comfort. "I don't think that's a very good idea."

Joss opened his mouth to argue, but the look in PJ's eyes told him instantly not to. He paused, looking away as tears of frustration and anger began to overwhelm his eyes. "If I ever meet the bastard who did this, they're going to wish they were never born."

PJ reached out, clapping Joss on the back and guiding him away from the hospital room as Amy and Sophie watched on. It wasn't just Kelly that this was affecting and something told them that they were all going to be feeling the pinch before this case was closed.


	62. Ep 13: Her Hero Pt3

**Part 3**

Alex sat back at his desk, his palms pressed down on his eyes as he tried to block out the sounds of the phones ringing off the hook on the desks around him. They were still a member down, leaving him alone to deal with the media fall-out of the attack on Kelly when he would much rather to be out in the field, taking part in the investigation. Word had spread around Mt. Thomas like wildfire – probably no thanks to a drunk Tony Timms being at the Imperial at the time – and now suddenly every man and his dog wanted to know about what had happened to Kelly.

It was moments like these that told him exactly why he had never wanted to become a Sergeant. When he had first joined the police force, he had never had visions of an illustrious career culminating in promotions. He had simply wanted to get out there in the uniform and make a difference. Help those who couldn't help themselves, the whole thing. He had never wanted to find himself sitting behind a desk, dealing with the media while one of his colleagues and mates was lying in hospital after having been forcibly raped.

---------------------------------

Amy invited herself into the Imperial Hotel with PJ in hot pursuit, despite the sign hanging on the door clearly telling them that the pub was closed. Chris didn't look up from where she was sitting behind the bar, drowning her sorrows in a bottle of scotch as they entered, instead choosing to respond in an angry and clearly upset voice. "Can't you read?" she snapped. "We're closed, so bugger off back to wherever you came from."

"Chris?" Amy whispered, approaching the bar slowly, causing Chris' head to snap up in surprise. She forced an embarrassed smile as she looked away, brushing fiery red curls back behind her ear. She apologised in a quiet mumble before finishing off the rest of her bottle. "We need to speak to you about what happened to Kelly…"

Chris nodded, pushing the bottle away and using the back of her hand to wipe tears away from her cheeks. "I don't really know what happened," she explained with a helpless shrug. "One minute I was trying to get Tony Timms out of the pub and the next thing you guys were rushing around saying Kelly had been hurt." She began shaking her head in disbelief, her eyes widening and her expression becoming one of hurt, fear and anger. "I should have done something."

PJ shook his head, reaching across the bar to take Chris' hand within his own as Amy watched on from over his shoulder, biting her bottom lip distractedly. "This is not your fault," he pointed out in a kind whisper. "This isn't yours, Joss' or Kelly's fault. You couldn't have known."

Amy stepped forward, opening her folder and pulling out the evidence bag containing the Mudlarks beanie that she had pulled off Kelly's face and thrown away. She felt her hand tighten on it in frustration and intense anger, before she offered it past PJ and over the bar to Chris. "This beanie was pulled down over Kelly's face when I found her," Amy explained. "Do you recognise it?"

Chris looked up to Amy in mild interest, her gaze slowly travelling down to the beanie. She reached out with a shaking hand and gently took it from Amy's grasp, surveying it through narrow eyes. "It's a Mudlarks beanie," she replied, looking up to the detectives before her through the red curls hanging limply over her eyes. "There's got to be at least a few thousand of these in Mt. Thomas."

"Yeah," Amy agreed with a slow nod, "but did you notice anyone wearing one earlier tonight?"

The publican looked back down to the beanie in her hands, closing her eyes as she tried to force her mind back to before this nightmare had begun. She suddenly nodded as realisation passed through her face. Her eyes snapped open. "There was some guy sitting at the bar," she explained, jumping to her feet and scampering around to the other side of the bar to motion towards a bar stool next to where PJ stood. "This stool…he was checking her out and…and he grabbed her wrist…"

Amy looked up to PJ, her eyes lighting up slightly as his head nodded. "Can you give us a name?" she asked, pulling out an old blue biro and raising it to a blank sheet of paper in her blue police folder.

Chris shook her head, only to almost collapse against the bar as realisation set in. "Bloody hell!" she cried as PJ jumped forward to guide her down the side of the bar and to the pub floor. "I knew that bastard was interested in her and I didn't do anything about it! He raped her! He raped her and I didn't do a damn thing to stop it!"

---------------------------------

Amy crossed the muster room of the police station, her head lowered and her shoulders hunched in deep thought and almost defeat. With each footstep, she could feel her heart sink further and further in her chest. She considered Kelly to be a close friend and almost like the little sister she'd never had. Everyone did, really. It was hard not to. Kelly had always been there for each of them, unconditionally and unwaveringly believing in them and supporting them, even if others wouldn't.

As she entered the CI office, Amy found herself bracing herself against her desk, lowering her head and letting out a shaky sigh. Her body shivered with the shock of everything, a built up reaction to the stress of not just that night, but the last month and a half. Silent tears pricked up in her eyes, slowly finding their way down her pale and wind-chilled cheeks. Images sprung to her mind, images she didn't want to remember. Of blood and blades and screaming. God, the screaming was the hardest thing to forget.

PJ followed Amy into the station but, unlike her, paused in the muster room to see Alex sitting alone, his eyes closed and his head tilted back in silent thought or pray. He approached his younger colleague, placing a friendly hand upon his shoulder. "Mate?" he asked quietly, stirring Alex back to life. The Sergeant jumped forward, knocking several folders to the floor. "Are you…alright?"

"Yeah, yeah," Alex replied, climbing to his feet and grabbing his car keys from his desk. "I'm heading home for a minute, would you mind covering for a bit?"

PJ opened his mouth to reply, but Alex didn't give him a chance. As the younger uniform disappeared down the corridor, PJ shrugged, his eyes clouding with tears. "Sure…whatever…"

---------------------------------

Alex reached out to open the door to the flat that had once been his and Susie's, only to find that the door simply swung open at his touch. His tired eyes widened at the light shining down the hallway from another room, sending shivers of uncertainty down his spine. It took him a split second to work out where the light was coming from. Susie's room.

He stormed down the hallway, slamming the front door behind him loudly. He didn't bother to even switch a light on as he approached Susie's room, being driven by a single emotion that he couldn't even comprehend.

He drew his gun from his belt in a single, swift motion as he appeared in the doorway, quickly training it on the sole figure in the room, who was sitting down on Susie's old bed and looking over at the photographs that still sat on her bedside table. He looked up in alarm at Alex, jumping to his feet and raising his hands in surrender. "Jesus, mate!" he exclaimed, panic spreading through his features. "What the hell is this?!"

Alex lowered his weapon as he took the man in standing across from him and recognition kicked in. He returned his gun to his holster and entered the room, grabbing the man's collar and slamming him hard against the nearest wall. "What the hell do you think you're doing in here?!"

The man tried to push Alex away, his eyes narrowed in confusion. "I was in town!" he explained. "I thought I'd drop by! Come on! It's your old mate, Roger! Roger Dean!"

Alex tossed Roger aside, shaking his head at his old mate as he ran a hand through his wind-swept blonde hair. "You stay out of this room, got it?" Alex snapped as he stormed out, leaving Roger alone on the floor.

---------------------------------

PJ joined Amy in the CI office, his expression softening at the sight of Amy bracing herself on her desk, futilely trying to blink away the tears in her eyes and streaming silently down her cheeks. His heart began to physically ache at Amy crying, his mind running with the realisation that there was more to Amy's absence than he had bothered to realise. In his own pain and agony at being apart from Amy, he had forgotten that there were two sides to the story.

He desperately tried to find something to say, but he found himself at a total loss for words. "Is…is something wrong?" He immediately started cursing himself for asking such a stupid question. Amy was never one for displaying signs of emotional weakness of vulnerability so if she was, then there was certainly something seriously wrong.

She looked up to him with wide emerald eyes, using the back of her hand to brush them away as best she could. She nodded, numbly finding her way down into her chair as PJ continued to stare on at her from just in front of the door that separated them from their uniformed colleagues. She tried to keep her eyes lowered, knowing all too well that she'd end up telling him everything if she wasn't careful. She'd been in this position far too many times for her liking. For all the devotion and passion she felt towards PJ, the knowledge he held of her past was almost threatening, as well as a source of comfort. "I'm fine," she lied unconvincingly, nervously brushing messy dark hair back from her face and behind her ear. "It's just…the stress of what's happened to Kelly…I mean, we need to nab this guy before he hurts someone else…"

"That's true," PJ agreed, sitting down at his desk and leaning across, reaching out to take Amy's hands in his. She flinched slightly at his touch, quickly yanking away from his grip.

Amy glanced up at the clock hanging on the wall above their desks, sighing deeply at the time. It was the early hours of the morning and she could already feel the pressure building up on her to find this rapist. "We have to find him before nightfall, Peej," she explained, trying desperately to push thoughts of what had happened in Perth as far away as she could. "We've just got to. I'm not letting him do this again. I'm bringing him down today, mark my words."

---------------------------------

Roger collapsed back onto the couch in the cramped living room of Alex's flat, intertwining his fingers at the base of his skull and closing his eyes as he let out a deep sigh of almost relief. "Not half bad," he told Alex as the police officer stood in the door, leaning side on against it as he regarded his old school mate with a kind of disapproval that he would have recognised from Susie if he were to look in a mirror. "A little small, but not half bad. You're not still rooming with that Jones guy, are you?"

"No," Alex replied with a small shake of his head, almost one of regret. He did miss his old mate, Jonesy always had a nice effect on him that he sorely missed. He would have given anything to return to the good old days of him and Jonesy playing pool at the pub and getting a little sloshed after work and even coming into conflict over Susie. "Jonesy's living in Melbourne now. He's married with a stepson and dog."

Roger's eyes snapped open at this and he couldn't help a laugh at Alex's words about Evan Jones' fate. "That'd be right," he responded. "That guy had no imagination. Straight down the line. Don't tell me he's got the white picket fence and a cat and a four-wheel drive as well."

"Not quite," Alex finished, his heart sinking in disappointment with his own life as he thought of how well his best mate's was going. Jonesy had it all with Tess, Puddles and little Evan in Melbourne, while he had a flat and the memories of Susie in Mt. Thomas.

"So what was in that room, anyway?" Roger asked, using his bulky arms to shift himself on the couch and using his fingers to comb straggly blonde strands back from his face. "You seemed pretty damn defensive."

Alex found a heavy lump forming in his chest that he struggled to swallow down. Eventually, he found himself speaking in a weak voice, barely able to dismiss the memories of Susie's death on the floor on the muster room. "I had a flatmate," he explained. "She was killed earlier this year…gunned down in a siege…"

"Shit," Roger replied simply, dwelling on Alex's obvious grief for all of five seconds before his expression brightened and he jumped to his feet. "Well, I'll crash here then, shall I? I'll just use your shower…"

Alex rolled his eyes as Roger disappeared down the hallway towards the bathroom. He was probably going to use his towel and then tease him about Susie's herbal shampoos when he was finished. There were sometimes that he couldn't help but wonder if Jonesy had been right about Roger Dean all those years ago. Maybe Roger was nothing but trouble.

He waited, unmoving in the doorway until he heard a door close and the sounds of running water before padding down the hallway to Susie's old room. He opened the door, inviting himself inside and looking around in reverence. He couldn't blame Kari Izumi for walking out on him for being in love with a ghost, not when he still had a little shrine to Susie Raynor that he couldn't bare to share with anyone.

The room still carried her scent, even over six months since she had last been inside it the morning of the shooting. He found himself walking towards the calendar hanging on a nearby wall, looking over the dates that Susie had scribbled over it in red biro late in December the previous year. Alex hadn't been able to touch the calendar since that day. With the exception of the few belongings that Susie's parents had taken after her death, the room was still left in the same state it had been on that morning in January. A monument to Susie that had almost taken on a life of its own.

He gently sat down on her bed, patting over the meticulously tidy purple doona fondly. Sharing a flat with Susie had never been the easiest thing in the world. They had almost been like the original odd couple, him the slob and her the neat-freak. Yet he wouldn't trade their arguments and squabbles for the world.

The piece of faded fabric sticking out from underneath the bed caught his eye, immediately clashing with the neat-freak persona he had connected with Susie when he had first moved in with her. He reached down, letting his hand close around it. Just from the feel of the fabric, he could tell it wasn't Susie's. He had spent endless nights alone in the dark in this room, burying his face in various pieces of Susie's clothing in an attempt to convince himself that she wasn't so far away. He knew what was hers and what wasn't.

He pulled it up onto his lap, immediately taking in the patches of bright red blood that had stained the faded old footy jumper that rested over his knees. The blood had dried, but Alex could tell that it was fairly recent. It couldn't have been there for more than a few hours or so.

He didn't know how long he had been sitting there, running his fingers across the blood stains before Roger Dean appeared in the doorway, wearing nothing more than Alex's towel wrapped loosely around his waist. He folded his arms across his chest at the sight of Alex sitting on Susie's bed, holding the footy jumper in his hands. "What's that?"

Alex climbed to his feet, his temper rising within him in a fiery storm as he felt his entire body jump to a conclusion he didn't quite like. "You tell me," he snapped bitterly as he thrust the blood-stained footy jumper in Roger's face. "I found this under Susie's bed."

"Susie's bed?" Roger asked, his face contorting into a cocky grin as he glanced over Alex's shoulder to the room beyond. "So that's what her name was. So, were you sleeping with this Susie or what?"

Alex grabbed Roger, roughly shoving him into the wall opposite Susie's doorway. He continued to wave the jumper in Roger's face. "Whose blood is this?" he demanded. Roger didn't reply, instead choosing to chuckle to himself at Alex's anger. Alex tightened his grip on Roger, slamming him even harder into the wall. "Whose blood is it?!"

"That blonde bitch was asking for it," Roger spat, his grin broadened and his eyes lighting up. "She was advertising and I was just giving her a customer. Why, what's that little bitch been saying?"

Alex brought a fist hard against the side of Roger's face, sending him crashing down to the floor with a loud thud. "That 'little bitch' is one of my colleagues, you bastard," he explained, storming out into the living room and heading for the phone.


	63. Ep 13: Her Hero Pt4

**Part 4**

Alex snatched up the cordless phone and got half-way through dialling the number of PJ's mobile when a strong hand closed around his and pulled the phone away. He spun in alarm to see Roger Dean standing over him, using his minimal amount of extra height to intimidate Alex as best he could. "You're not calling your copper mates," he explained with a shake of his head. "You're not turning me in."

"You forcibly raped one of my Constables," Alex reminded him, doing his best to remain calm and in control of himself. His best wasn't anywhere near good enough. He could feel a fiery anger building up within him, one he knew that Jonesy, Susie and a perhaps immature sense of humour had always kept in check. Now all three had deserted him, all sense of self-control seemed to have followed. "You beat her, you held her down and you raped her! She'll probably be traumatised for the rest of her life!"

Alex lurched for the phone in Roger's hand; however he quickly held it back and out of Alex's reach. "Mates first, girls second…don't you remember the deal, Lexy?" Roger taunted, shoving Alex back with one hand. "Why would you care this much anyway, unless you've been sleeping with her too…"

Alex fell backwards into a coffee table and barely managing to stop his head from slamming back into it hard. He returned to shaky feet, approaching Roger and glaring at him coldly. Roger folded his arms across his chest, regarding Alex sternly. "You aren't turning me in, Lexy," he finished as he leant in ever closer so that Alex could smell the alcohol on his breath. "Not unless you want all your colleagues to know about what happened with Rhianna Patterson in year eleven."

Alex began to back away, his eyes widening at Roger's threat. Rhianna Patterson…he'd thought that was long behind him, that everyone had forgotten it. Not everyone had – Roger Dean certainly hadn't, for a start. "You…you bastard…" Alex whispered, shaking his head. "This is blackmail…"

"I don't like calling it blackmail," Roger mused, smiling at Alex with a cockiness that made his skin crawl with resentment and hatred. "I'd say we just have an…agreement. You keep your mouth shut about this rape and your colleagues won't find out about Rhianna Patterson, got it?"

Alex found his head nodding slowly as Roger punched him softly in the shoulder and headed off towards his bedroom, probably to get dressed and then crash on the couch to sleep. He looked down to the blood-stained footy jumper, his mind an explosion of thoughts and fears and anger. He couldn't just let someone get away with what they had done to Kelly O'Rourke, but his colleagues couldn't find out about what had happened back in year eleven with Rhianna Patterson.

As he headed off towards the laundry to dump off the horrid jumper, he began to pray that his colleagues would find the evidence on their own to convict Roger Dean. As he made the conscious decision to withhold the jumper from PJ and Amy, the stench seemed to take on a whole new dimension, one of terror and shame. Kelly O'Rourke's terror and his shame.

---------------------------------

PJ and Amy's heads snapped up as the door to their office opened and Joss Peroni invited himself inside. Joss looked quite distraught, but appeared to be half-heartedly attempting to mask it behind a façade of professionalism which didn't really come across quite right. Or, at least not for the two detectives staring up at him expectantly.

"I checked recent offenders and there's nothing there. Chris helped me circulate the description of that guy," Joss explained, his voice wavering with fear and anger. The expressions of the two detectives before him lifted in hope, only to crash immediately at Joss' next words. "No one seems to have seen him at all. We don't even have any idea of where to start."

Amy nodded, looking down to her hands as she began to wring them together on top of the piles of paperwork placed in meticulous order across the desk top. "He could be half way to Melbourne by now," she mused, looking up to PJ briefly, silently pleading with her eyes for him to come up with the sensible suggestion that would help her crack the case as he had often done in the past. He didn't, instead simply offering her a helpless shrug.

"We could talk to Kelly again," PJ finally suggested, realising that Amy and Joss were expecting him to say something even remotely helpful. "Maybe her memory will have started to come back about the rape."

Amy shook her head, looking away as she began to bite her thumbnail in frustration. "Even if Kelly can tell us that it was our football jumper guy who raped her, that still doesn't tell us anything more than we already know," she pointed out, leaving her two male colleagues nodding in agreement. "Anyway, they've given her something to help her sleep; I rang Sophie a little earlier to check up on her."

Joss felt his heart began to physically ache in his chest as thoughts of the suffering Kelly was going through hit him hard. He loved Kelly so much and yet, there was nothing he could do to help her at all. Amy, instantly recognising how much this was hurting her younger uniformed colleague, finally rose to her feet and began to rub his arm soothingly and gave his shoulder a small squeeze of encouragement.

"Short of questioning everyone in Mt. Thomas," PJ began, almost causing Amy and Joss to physically jump in surprise, "there's not a lot we can do."

Sudden realisation spread through Amy's face as she sat back down at her desk while her two colleagues stared at her expectantly. "Maybe he'll get cocky," she explained, looking from PJ to Joss and back again as she watched for some kind of a reaction. Nothing came. "Maybe he'll come back to the Imperial, try his luck again. He'll realise that we haven't been able to nab him and he might just get stupid enough to come back for a second go."

PJ narrowed his eyes, glancing up to Joss briefly before turning back to Amy. "So you're suggesting that we put the Imperial under surveillance, keep on eye on our footy jumper guy and see if he makes another move?"

She shrugged, looking to him pointedly. "Or I could go undercover; bait him into trying it again."

PJ opened his mouth to argue, but quickly realised the futility of it, especially with Joss standing there and liable to take Amy's side when pushed. "Ah, that's all, Peroni," he said, raising an eyebrow at Joss in the hopes that he'd take the hint. He did. As soon as Joss had returned to the muster room, PJ turned back to Amy. "Are you completely insane?!" he demanded, raising his voice a little too much for his liking. "You can't be seriously considering this!"

She rose to her feet, glaring at him in disbelief. "Why not?" she asked him, folding her arms across his chest. "You want to get whoever did this to Kel, don't you?"

"Of course I do, you know I bloody do!" PJ replied, rising to his feet and crossing the short distance between them. "But I don't want you to get hurt in the process! What if we can't get there fast enough or he catches us out? You could end up raped or even killed! I can't lose you; I care about you too much!"

Amy looked up at him, her expression softening at the concern that she could feel radiating off PJ and overwhelming her. It was almost enough to change her mind. Almost. "I'm not letting a rapist walk," she finished, drawing in a shaky breath. "I'll have you, Joss and Alex covering me. Nothing can go wrong, trust me."

As Amy left the office and headed across the muster room to speak to Mark, PJ braced himself against his desk, lowering his head and letting out a heavy sigh. "Why is it that every time she tells me to trust her, I feel like throwing up?"

---------------------------------

Amy sat down at the bar, discreetly checking herself over. She resented the outfit that they'd dressed her in – it was far too low at the top and far too high at the bottom. Not too mention heels that were so high that they were starting to really hurt. She'd never felt entirely comfortable with herself or her body, which she told herself was why she seemed to live in dark, sensible suits.

Chris approached the bar, offering her a wine glass filled to the brim with a bright red liquid. Amy picked it up, sniffing it before sculling it quickly. "I hope you're not the type of person who gets high on red cordial," Chris told her with a laugh. "That's your fifth in the last hour."

"I've got to look absolutely sloshed," Amy reminded her, lowering her voice and letting her words run into one another and slur just in case their rapist was watching on and planning her to be the next victim. "He's got to think I'm an easy target."

"I don't think he'll get anywhere near that far to be honest," Chris explained, motioning over to a chair over near the pool table where Joss and Kelly had been playing and arguing and kissing the night before. PJ was sitting over near it, half-heartedly downing his seventh glass of water that hour. "He's been watching like a hawk all night. He really missed you while you were away. I remember him sitting right here last night and telling me that he was worried you weren't coming back and that you could be dead." She paused, waving a dismissive hand to a young couple in the dining room who were beginning to get quite impatient with the delay in serving their drinks. "Why were you gone for so long?"

Amy blushed as she sighed and looked away, sadly contemplating her empty glass of red cordial, or red wine, as far as their rapist was to be concerned. "It's too long a story, Chris," she finished, suddenly distracted by a young man who was making his way towards her. He wasn't wearing a faded football jumper, but he did otherwise meet the description of their rapist. Chris nodded to Amy, a silent signal that this was their man. But Amy knew that she had to let this get far enough or else they'd end up with nothing to charge him with.

"Hello, hello, hello," the man greeted Amy as he invited himself to sit down beside her, his eyebrows raised in approval as he looked her up and down. Amy knew that he was undressing her with his eyes. She looked away, staring down into her glass and reminding herself that she was meant to be very drunk on red wine. "You look like you could do with another wine."

Amy looked up to him, feigning a drunken smile as she waved off his suggestion. "Nah," she replied, pushing it away. "I could do with a bit of fresh air, though." She glanced furtively over her shoulder, hoping that PJ was picking up the hint. This was their only chance to nab this guy.

The man rose to his feet as Amy rose to hers. She quickly pretended to stumble slightly in drunkenness, letting herself fall heavily into his chest. Whoever this guy was or thought he was, he stank of that horrible Lynx deodorant that Joss was always wearing. "Whoa…" he commented with a smile, gently helping her back to her feet as PJ and Chris watched on in concern, both sharing the same thoughts that Amy was going in way over her head. "You alright?"

"Yeah…" she said, purposely slurring her words and giggling in a high pitched tone. "Just a little sloshed…I need some fresh air…"

The man nodded, gently guiding her out towards the door, smiling down at her with a wide grin that Amy instantly knew was fake. "So what's your name, anyway?" she asked him, falling into his chest just a little bit more.

"Roger," he replied quickly, as he tightened his grip on as they headed out into the night. "Roger Dean."

---------------------------------

Alex sat back in the car parked outside the Imperial Hotel, grateful for the darkness as it allowed him to hide his shame more easily from Joss Peroni sitting next to him in the passenger seat with his eyes glued to the door. He'd agreed to the undercover operation that Amy had come up with, but he didn't like it one little bit. Not when he already knew exactly who had raped Kelly and especially not when we knew that Roger Dean was at the pub again tonight and was hoping to 'score' again. He'd watched Roger leave the flat, laughing to himself and openly sharing his plans for finding another poor girl to attack, knowing full well that he had Alex over a barrel.

"Have you seen Kelly since…" Alex trailed off, looking over to Joss in the dark. Joss didn't tear his gaze away from the pub door, shaking his head.

"No," Joss replied simply, curtly ending the conversation before it had even started. "Just keep looking out for Amy. I already let this happen to Kelly, I'm not letting it happen to Amy too."

Alex narrowed his eyes as he looked over to Joss, shaking his head in confusion. "How are you to blame?" he asked in a puzzled tone.

"She's my best mate and…" Joss trailed off, the pain bringing small tears of guilt and shame to his eyes – guilt and shame that he didn't deserve. "And…I wasn't there to protect her the one time she needed me the most. Everyone's always been right about me – I'm a complete idiot."

Alex reached over, grabbing Joss' shoulder and squeezing it tightly. "You are not an idiot, Peroni!" he snapped, shaking him and stealing his attention away from the door of the Imperial. "You're a good person, a good copper and a good friend! Kelly is lucky to have you."

Joss nodded, smiling at Alex slightly in the dark. "Thank you," he replied, sinking back into his car seat. "Nobody's actually said I'm any of those things before."

In the short time that Alex had taken Joss' attention away from the Imperial Hotel, Roger and Amy had slipped out into the cold night and he had guided her down towards the same alleyway where Amy had found Kelly the night before.

---------------------------------

Amy felt her heart beating faster in her chest, desperately praying that Joss and Alex were still watching. She knew that this man wanted her to be his next victim and, if they didn't get there soon, she knew he'd get exactly that. In less than half a second, Roger suddenly went from being the nice guy of his façade to showing his true colours. He threw her back hard against the wall so she hit her head against the rough brickwork and slid to the ground. The world became a whirl of colour and pain as she hit the cold cement, her determination to fight of absolutely no use to her as it all faded out to black.


	64. Ep 13: Her Hero Pt5

**Part 5**

PJ stood in the doorway of the Imperial Hotel, staring blindly out into the dimly lit night. He couldn't hear sounds of Alex and Joss racing to Amy's rescue or even the sounds of Amy calling for help. All that met his ears were the usual night sounds of Mt. Thomas – the occasional car passing by and the dog of a nearby house barking and howling to the sky. Something was niggling at the fore of his mind, refusing to let him trust in his two colleagues outside. Surely there would be something, surely…

His doubts finally got the better of him as he raced out into the night, drawing his torch from his back pocket and jogging down along towards the alleyway where they had found Kelly lying unconscious. His heart beat wildly in his chest, refusing to let him be. He knew that impending sense of doom well. Something was about to happen to his Amy and he was the only one who could stop it.

His eyes widened as two shadowy figures finally came into view – one was lying on the ground while the other was crawling around on top, pulling at what appeared to be the first person's clothes. It took a split second for PJ to realise that Roger Dean was on top of Amy and trying to rape her.

"You get your filthy hands off her!" PJ roared, closing the distanced between them in just moments and wrapping his arms around Roger, distracting the bulky man from where he was tearing at Amy's clothes. PJ quickly scanned Amy over – she looked like she had hit her head and been knocked out, but it didn't seem serious. Her skirt had been pulled down so it was down around her ankles, but it seemed Roger hadn't quite gotten to her underwear.

PJ dragged Roger away, using every single ounce of strength he possessed to throw the man in his arms to the ground hard, just as Alex and Joss came running, their weapons drawn. Alex felt his heart sink at the sight of Roger, knowing full well that he was going to be partly responsible if anything had happened to Amy. Joss was quick to sit down on top of Roger's back, slamming the cuffs around his wrists and keeping him pinned to the ground as he delivered the usual arrest spiel.

Roger glanced up at Alex, his expression contorted into a threatening glare that sent cold chills through Alex's body. Alex shuddered, quickly turning away and heading back to the car to report the events to Mark over the radio.

As soon as he was certain that Alex and Joss had Roger Dean under control, PJ returned to Amy's side, gently pulling her skirt back up as she slowly began to come to. She tried to push herself up, only to wince and groan in pain. Her head pounded with an almighty headache as she reached back, the sticky blood clinging to her fingertips as she ran them over her injury.

"It's okay," PJ soothed her, laying his jacket over her to keep her warm as he had with Kelly the night before. He bent, pressing his lips softly against her temple in a protective kiss. "It's okay, we got him."

Amy nodded, letting herself sink back onto the cement as the swirling darkness around her overwhelmed her body yet again. PJ pulled her closer as she lost consciousness, his heart still pounding in his chest as he glared up to Alex and Joss with anger and betrayal shining in his eyes. The two men met his gaze momentarily, only to immediately wish they hadn't.

"Why the hell didn't you two stop this sooner?!" he demanded, his voice ringing out over the car park. Neither Alex nor Joss had the heart to answer him.

---------------------------------

Mark sank back into his chair in his office, letting his head sink forward into his hands in a bizarre combination of relief and defeat. All in all, he supposed that the undercover operation had been a success – they had their rapist and enough evidence to get him for attempted rape at least and Amy hadn't been seriously injured in the process. She was going to have a nasty headache and an unpleasant night in the hospital under observation, but it could have been much worse.

The door to his office opened quietly and Mark could feel his heart physically sink in his chest as his instincts immediately told him who his late-night visitor would be. Inspector Piper Morris was back to make his life more and more like a living nightmare.

"I trust that Senior Detective Fox has made contact, as we agreed last night," Piper began, folding her arms across her dark police jacket.

He nodded without looking up, beginning to massage his temples in a futile attempt to dismiss the headache that Piper always seemed to bring on with a vengeance. "She returned late last night," he replied in an emotionless monotone. "She's currently at the hospital."

"Hospital?"

"She was involved in an undercover operation earlier tonight to catch the man responsible for the rape of Constable Kelly O'Rourke last night," Mark explained, finally looking up to get some kind of a gauge on Piper's response. Her expression was still as blank as it ever seemed to be where he was concerned. "She was knocked unconscious, but not seriously injured. She's being kept overnight for observation and being released in the morning."

Piper nodded, thoughtfully brushing a stray ringlet from her face. "Well," she finished, shooting Mark an almost patronising smile. "We can have this conversation in the morning then. She'd better have a good excuse for why she was away so long if she'd like to stay in plainclothes, that's all I can say."

Mark lowered his head in disgust and annoyance as Piper turned to leave, only to find his defensive nature taking control. He rose to his feet, shaking his head as he spoke. "Amy Fox is one of the best police officers I have ever had the pleasure of knowing," he pointed out, his voice a little too snappy and Tom-like for his liking. "If she does something this out of character, then she's got a bloody good reason for it."

Piper paused, looking back to Mark, the patronising stare gone from her face. She nodded thoughtfully, taking in Mark's words. "Well," she finished, drawing in a deep breath as she tried to keep herself as calm and professional as possible, "then I'll be here in the morning to hear it."

---------------------------------

Roger sat back in his chair in the interview room, barely able to hold back cocky laughter at the anger and frustration running through the expressions of PJ and Joss as they sat across from him. Neither of the police officers should really have been doing that interview and they knew it – they were both far too close to the crimes for it to be entirely ethical or professional. But they were going to see this through.

"Roger Dean," PJ began, struggling to overcome the sense that he should be at the hospital with Amy rather than sitting across from a rapist. "We have more than enough evidence to charge you with the attempted rape of Senior Detective Fox…"

"I didn't know she was a bloody copper," Roger replied, rolling his eyes as he slumped back. "She wanted it, anyway. She was begging me to screw her."

PJ gritted his teeth to stop himself from responding, instead pulling a small cassette from the open police folder in front of Joss on the desk. He pushed it towards Roger, glaring at him coldly as the man regarded it with calm steely eyes. "She didn't want anything from you," he spat harshly. "She was wearing a wire. Seems you lured her in with kindness and flirting then shoved her against a brick wall."

"I don't deny chatting to her," Roger answered, pushing the tape back across the tape to PJ. "But what you saw was completely consensual."

"Bullshit," PJ snapped, rising to his feet and leaning in so that he was barely centimetres from Roger's face. "You were going to rape her just like you raped Constable Kelly O'Rourke last night!"

Just as PJ opened his mouth to say something more, the door to the interview room opened and Alex Kirby peered through, his eyes lowered and his cheeks red as he realised that he was receiving the death glare to end all death glares from Roger Dean. He glanced up to PJ momentarily. "I think we need to talk, PJ," he managed in a shaking whisper of a voice.

PJ followed Alex out into the hallway, suddenly catching sight of the piece of fabric Alex held tightly in a clenched fist. A brief inspection immediately confirmed that it was the faded footy jumper that Chris Riley had described Roger as having been wearing last night. Not to mention the blood stains that covered it. "Where did you get this?" he asked, his voice suddenly devoid of emotion.

"Roger," Alex began, his heart racing and his voice wobbling and breaking, "he…he's an old mate of mine from school. I found him at my flat last night in Susie's room and…and I found this under her bed early this morning."

PJ reached out, snatching it from Alex's fist. He turned it over in his hands as he looked it over before finally narrowing his eyes in anger and looking up to Alex in disbelief. "Forensics will find that this is Kelly's blood, won't they?"

Alex nodded slowly, trying to gulp down the lump in his throat. "They will," he replied.

"Why the hell didn't you tell us about this earlier?" PJ demanded, finally unable to restrain the anger that was overwhelming him. "You had the piece of evidence we needed – you had the jumper and the guy's name!"

"He told me he'd attacked her," Alex explained, shuffling his feet awkwardly. "I wanted to tell you…"

PJ shook his head, pacing in a small circle for a brief moment before slamming Alex hard against the nearest wall in frustration. He held Alex there for less than half a second before releasing his grip, slumping back against the wall opposite and letting his head rest in his free hand. "You knew that this man had attacked Kelly O'Rourke," he mused, his whole demeanour telling Alex that PJ was utterly ashamed of him. "And then you didn't tell us, even when you knew that Amy was going to be putting her body and life on the line to catch him. She was nearly raped by this mate of yours and she could have been killed." He finally looked up to Alex, appealing to him with pleading blue eyes. "Why would you let her do that?"

"He threatened me," Alex whispered, sinking to the floor in shame and regret. "He threatened to tell you guys about what happened to Rhianna Patterson when we were in year eleven." He looked up to PJ, waiting for some kind of a reaction, but all he received was an expectant stare. There was no going back now. "Rhianna and I had been out at a party and I caught her kissing Roger. I snapped, we argued and I accidentally shoved her. She stumbled back and broke her spine on a nearby stair…" He trailed off, the memories returning to him in a rush of shame and guilt.

"Was it investigated?" PJ asked, folding his arms across his chest.

Alex nodded, looking away. "The local coppers investigated it and found that it was an accident. Rhianna and her family weren't interested in compensation…they didn't even blame me."

PJ stood up straight, glaring down hard at Alex as he tightened his grip on the jumper that carried Kelly's blood. "You obstructed the course of justice," he explained, "hindered a police investigation and just about became an accessory to not one but two rapes. Did you distract Joss on purpose?"

"What?"

"In the car," PJ explained. "Roger and Amy slipped out of the Imperial while you and Joss weren't looking. Joss would have been watching like a hawk to find the bastard who had raped Kelly. Did you distract him on purpose?"

Alex's eyes widened in horror. He almost couldn't believe that PJ Hasham was asking him this. He somehow managed to stop himself from overreacting, realising numbly that, after everything he had done over the last twenty-four hours, he could be capable of anything as far as they were concerned. "No," he replied, shaking his head and staring up at PJ with pure honesty in his eyes. "Joss was beating himself up over what had happened to Kelly. He was saying that it was his fault for not knowing what was happening to her outside, for not being there to save her. I was trying to tell him that he wasn't to blame." Alex felt his heart sink at the doubt in PJ's eyes. "I swear that's the truth, PJ."

PJ nodded, letting out a deep sigh of anger, frustration, disappointment and regret. "You ever pull a stunt like this again Alex Kirby," he began, his voice shaking with anger, "and I swear to God that I'll have your badge, no matter how much you're grieving for Susie Raynor, is that clear?"

Alex nodded, lowering his eyes as PJ stormed away down the corridor, his voice echoing after him. "I'll send Mark in to finish the interview; I'm going to see Amy."

---------------------------------

PJ drew in a deep breath to compose himself as he approached Amy's hospital room, nearly bumping into Sophie Ash as she slipped out through the door. She looked to him, smiling weakly. "She's regained consciousness," Sophie explained, reaching out to rub his arm with a soft hand. "She's asking for you."

He nodded, returning Sophie's half-smile and invited himself into Amy's room, closing the door silently behind him. Amy didn't try to push herself up from where she was lying back against a pile of pillows, her head bandaged and the bags even more obvious under her eyes. He felt his heart melt at the small smile of hope that played across her lips as he crossed the room to stand beside her bed, wrapping her hand within his.

"Did you get him?" Amy asked, her emerald green eyes wide and filled with a kind of hope that seemed to make Amy resemble little more than a child. He nodded as he wordlessly grabbed a hospital chair from nearby and dragged it with one hand so that it was at Amy's bedside.

He let a small laugh escape his lips as he rubbed Amy's hand, knowing full well that neither of them could ignore the electricity playing between them. It was that familiar kind of tension that had once scared them, yet had come to bring them immense comfort and happiness. "Of course we did," he told her as he leant forward, reaching out to brush strands of dark hair back from Amy's forehead tenderly. "We've got the taping, we've got witnesses, we've got the jumper from last night…we've got more than enough to send him away for a long, long time."

Amy found her smile broadening, her heart slowing in her chest in relief. She sank back into the pillows slightly as another matter began to creep into her mind. PJ tightened his hands around hers in concern, noticing how her brow began to furrow. "What's wrong?" he asked, glancing briefly back over his shoulder to the door. "Are you feeling okay? Do you want me to grab Sophie…"

"It's not that, Peej," she replied, shaking her head as she continued to stare blindly ahead, biting her bottom lip in a characteristic display of deep thought. The memories that she had been fighting off all day had returned, the memories of what had happened in Perth. She could see snatches of it playing out in her mind again – the silence, the blood, the blade, the screaming…

PJ began to brush at her hair again, his own brow furrowing as his worry intensified. "Amy…"

She turned to look at him, her eyes shining with tears. She paused, drawing in a deep breath before finally speaking. "I should have told you about…" she trailed off, meeting PJ's eyes for encouragement to find him staring at her with that concerned, yet expectant look on his face. It was a look that had never failed to get to her. "About Perth. About why I didn't call you or…or reply to your calls. Relationships are all about communication and…and I guess I broke that." She paused, finding herself slightly uncomfortable with using the word 'relationship'. "I…I have to tell you why I was away so long. You deserve that much, at least."

PJ paused, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly as Amy let out a heavy sigh before continuing. He was about to get the answer to the question that had been nagging him for far too long.


	65. Ep 13: Her Hero Pt6

**Part 6**

Lyrics in this part are from _"When You Say Nothing At All" _by Ronan Keating.

Mark let his fingers close around the coffee cup, the brown liquid's heat immediately finding its way through his cold body. Early winter mornings had never been his specialty. If he had his way, he'd still be rugged up in bed with the electric blanket on high and the heater turned on in the next room. However, between Penny almost physically kicking him out of the bed these days and Piper Morris wanting early morning meetings, he wasn't going to get his way at all. He always seemed to invite these kinds of women into his life.

His head snapped up at the sounds of footsteps out in the muster room. Much to his relief, it was Amy and PJ and not Piper Morris there to make his life hell again. Amy was wearing a pair of dark denim jeans and what looked to be a very warm bright red woollen jumper. PJ had his arm draped loosely around her shoulders as he guided her through the station, talking to her in a hushed and soothing tone. Amy didn't look too badly injured – just a little pale and worse for wear.

The pair invited themselves into Mark's office, closing the door quietly behind them. Mark motioned for them to sit. "You may as well take a seat," he told them with a reluctant smile. "Piper Morris will probably have the pair of you standing when she arrives."

"And I thought Monica Draper was bad," PJ mumbled with a cheeky smile that brought light and brief laughter to Amy's lips as she slipped down into one of the chairs opposite Mark's desk.

Mark looked Amy over before pushing what was going to be his coffee across the desk to her. She looked down at it with narrowed eyes before looking back up to him and shaking her head in confusion. "Take it," he told her with a friendly smile. "I was only using it as a hand-warmer, anyway. You could probably do with the caffeine more than me; you look like death warmed up."

Amy nodded appreciatively as she took the coffee in her hands, drawing in a long mouthful of the warm liquid while PJ stood over her shoulder, his hand placed on it protectively. "I haven't slept much in…" she trailed off, suddenly realising that she couldn't remember how long it had been since she had gotten a decent night's sleep. "Probably just before I flew out to Perth."

"Last night shouldn't have happened," Mark said with a saddened sigh. "I should never have approved that undercover operation, especially when we're understaffed as it is, let alone with Kelly in hospital. I shouldn't have let it happen."

She shook her head, staring down into the depths of the coffee, sighing in silent contemplation as though it would somehow help to take back all the pain of the last couple of days – and while she was at it, perhaps the last couple of months too. "It wasn't your fault, it was my idea, remember?" she reminded him with a half-hearted smile. "I had to do it, Mark. I had to find this guy before he hurt anyone else."

Mark nodded in agreement as the door opened and Piper Morris burst in, unwrapping her dark scarf from around her neck as she closed the door to Mark's officer behind her. Her expectant and cold stare immediately brought the three to standing and they watched as she took the liberty to invite herself behind the desk.

"Senior Detective Amy Fox," she said with the almost patronising smile that Mark knew all too well. "How very lovely of you to grace us with your presence at last."

Amy nodded, lowering her head in embarrassment. "I apologise for my unexplained and lengthy absence," she said in a voice that was almost a mumble as PJ discreetly slipped her hand into his between them. "I understand that I should have notified you to what was happening."

Piper rose an eyebrow as she sat down in Mark's chair, leaning back and intertwining her fingers behind her head. Mark glanced down at her with critical eyes before looking up to Amy and PJ in sympathy. Piper looked from Amy to PJ, staring at him hard for a long moment. "How do you fit into all this, ah…"

"Senior Detective Hasham," PJ finished, his expression blank. "Senior Detective PJ Hasham. I fit into all this because I'm Amy's working partner, housemate and best friend, if it is any of your business."

"Right…" Piper trailed off, her gut beginning to almost scream at her with suspicions on the true nature of PJ and Amy's friendship, but logic told her that now was not the time. PJ Hasham didn't seem to be kind of person she'd want to cross when it came to Amy Fox. "I'd be almost inclined to let this absence go in the wake of last night's events; however your supervisor in St. Davids is most unimpressed. Is there any reasonable explanation for why you were absent for a prolonged period of time?"

Amy paused, looking up to PJ silently in search of support. He smiled down at her in that kind and supportive way that always made her feel as though she wasn't alone. She couldn't be, not when PJ was on her side. She drew in a deep breath to try to calm herself as she let her mind drift back to the nightmare she would have rather forgotten. "In late May, my cousin visited me at the police station. We grew up together when my parents were killed, but we hadn't seen each other for a while. He…he told me that his wife was terminally ill and didn't have long left. He wanted my help in the last days and with his teenage daughter."

"Yes…" Piper probed, staring at Amy with a cold curiosity, an expression that Amy recognised from herself when she was interviewing suspects.

"Following his wife's death, he invited me to fly over to Perth with him and his daughter to visit his in-laws," Amy continued, her voice beginning to wobble slightly as she knew what was going to come soon. "The day we arrived in Perth, his in-laws had to head out to deal with funeral arrangements and Brendan, that's my cousin…he asked me to take his daughter Chloe out for a little while. He said he needed to be alone. We arrived back several hours later and Brendan didn't reply when we called out to him. We found him lying unconscious on the couch in the living room covered in his own blood…" She felt her eyes welling with hot tears that stung. She looked away as PJ's hand tightened ever more around her own. She could feel Mark's stare of horror, disbelief and sympathy upon her.

She opened her mouth to try to continue, however every time her voice was lost before it reached her lips. Tears began to silently find their way down her cheeks, breaking every last trace of the professionalism she had hoped to keep in tact in front of Piper Morris. PJ gently guided her back to where she had been sitting prior to Piper's arrival, letting his hand run up her arm so that it was now squeezing her shoulder comfortingly.

"He'd slit his wrists," PJ finished for her, glancing up briefly before looking back down to Amy. She looked up to him in weak appreciation before drawing in a deep breath, knowing full well that she was going to have to finish this.

"He recovered," she continued, her voice barely audible, "but we had to watch him in case he tried to do something like that again. He…he was so lost without his wife…we had two grieving parents, one grieving daughter and a clinically depressed husband all under the one roof and I was left to hold the whole thing together." She felt her whole body tremble under the weight of the stress that she had been under. "Chloe finally told me to go home, she said I couldn't keep going and that I was going to break soon…" Amy began shaking her head as she buried her face in her hands. "I should have made contact, I should have informed you…"

PJ gave Amy's shoulder another squeeze, a silent signal that she didn't have to say anything more. Piper Morris was now sitting forward, her eyes distracted and her mind clearly elsewhere. Past experience told PJ that Piper had some demons of her own to deal with, but he wasn't going to push her. Amy was one thing, Piper was a total other.

Piper finally rose to her feet, hastily brushing curls back from her face. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice nervous and close to breaking. "That must have been very difficult for you. I'm not prepared to take any further action on this matter and I don't imagine that your supervisor will either." She headed for the door, disappearing out without another word.

Mark's eyes widened, his mind a whirlwind of thoughts. He knew Piper Morris better than most and he knew that she was hiding something from him. However, he also knew that now was not to time to act on his suspicions.

Amy drew in a deep breath as she rose to her feet, letting PJ rub her back soothingly. She looked up to him, a weak smile dancing on her lips. "Looks like I'm not going to lose my job after all," she told him, chuckling weakly.

"You never were," Mark pointed out, quickly turning PJ and Amy's attention to him where he stood behind his desk. "Piper Morris may be straight down the line and not one for bending rules, but she's not a bad person. You were never going to lose your job." He headed around his desk, his expression softening further as Amy's words rolled around inside his head. "I can arrange someone for you to talk to about what happened in Perth, if you'd like to…"

She gave Mark a weak smile of appreciation before shaking her head. "Thanks, but no thanks," she told him in a voice that almost seemed devoid of conviction and strength. "I think what I need is a good sleep and a long, hot bath. And maybe a little chocolate caffeine wouldn't hurt…"

PJ looked up to Mark and the two men shared a small laugh at Amy's words. "Well," Mark said with a smile, "I'm sure PJ here will be happy to oblige with the sleep, bath and chocolate."

---------------------------------

Joss stood at the door to Kelly's hospital room, his body trembling with uncertainty as he stared through the glass pane in the door that separated him from the girl he loved. Kelly was lying in the bed, curled up on her side and shaking. Her beautiful blonde hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail and all the strength and brightness that he had so adored about her seemed to have abandoned her without a trace.

He finally found the courage within him to push the door open, the soft creak enough to jolt Kelly up to sitting. The alarm in her face faded slowly at the sight of Joss approaching her slowly, a large bouquet of red roses in his arms. He held them out to her, his voice little more than a nervous croak. "I should have…I should have…stopped him somehow…"

Kelly shook her head, her eyes brimming over with hot salty tears as she took the flowers from Joss' arms and reached out for him. As soon as he was within arm's reach, she had pulled him close, sobbing desperately into his jacket as she gripped him ever tighter. "Don't be an idiot, Peroni," she managed between sobs. "It isn't actually your fault this time."

He found himself chuckling softly at Kelly's words as he eased into the hug, rubbing his hands along Kelly's back as he let her continue to sob into his chest, her tears forming dark, wet patches. He didn't really know what to say to her. Nothing really seemed quite right. So, rather than say anything, he decided to trust in the bond between them. Sometimes silence just said it better than words ever would.

_You say it best when you say nothing at all_


	66. Ep 14: Crossing The Line Pt1

**Episode 14: "Crossing The Line"**

_**Summary: **The Heelers are mortified when Falcon-Price returns to Mt. Thomas on bail, only to find themselves wondering if one of their own has crossed the line when he is later found murdered. Amy and Garth find themselves unable to keep their personal problems out of the office._

**Part 1**

Chris stood behind the bar of the Imperial Hotel, serving a drink to an impatient customer in the dining room while her mind drifted off to a million miles away. Beneath her fiery red curls was hiding a woman who was becoming less and less certain of herself and her place in the world. Kelly's rape nearly two weeks ago had left her shaken and feeling as though she no longer had any control over her life. She'd always relished in her sense of control, the fact that she was the master of her own world and of the pub she ran with delight. Yet, there seemed to be no control left anymore to take. It made her wonder if she'd wasted her life doing something that she no longer had the heart for.

The door into the public bar opened and a man with a relatively slender frame and very familiar face entered, sauntering over to the bar almost as though he was right at home. He oozed an overconfident cockiness that instinctively put Chris offside. It took only moments later for her to realise just who this man was, and it left her reeling inside. Her stomach began to tie itself into uncomfortable knots in her stomach as her heart began to race with anger. Russell Falcon-Price.

"Ah, Chris, isn't it?" the man asked, smiling casually towards her, almost as if everything he had done hadn't happened. As though he hadn't ruined the lives of so many of the people she knew.

She pointed a finger towards the door he had just come through, her hand shaking with anger. "Get out!" she roared, her voice almost hitting hysterics. "Get the hell out of my pub! You're not welcome here!"

Falcon-Price nodded, backing away from Chris uneasily. "Well," he replied as he turned to leave, well aware of the fact that the other patrons had all turned to stare. Some just stared on in utter confusion, while others quickly recognised him and began to whisper in hushed and almost excited voices. "There's always another pub."

"You're not welcome in this town!" she called after him, causing him to turn to her momentarily in curiosity. "Not after what you did. You'd be better off going somewhere else. Anywhere else."

He shook his head, his smile becoming more and more confident. "But I don't want to go anywhere else," he pointed out. "I'm happy here."

Chris stared after him in disbelief as Falcon-Price left, leaving the pub buzzing with hushed whispers as he did so. She finally looked away, shaking her head and massaging her temples, trying to force some kind of logical reasoning to her mind. Falcon-Price was back.

---------------------------------

The sound of the buzzer sounding in the reception area startled each of the police officers to attention, causing them to all turn to the monitor in anticipation. The sight that greeted them was not one they wished to see at all. Standing at the counter in the reception area, arms folded casually across his chest and his lips twisted into a smug grin, was Russell Falcon-Price.

Mark slowly wandered out into the muster room, letting out a deep sigh of disbelief at the sight of his former superior officer. He swore under his breath and began shaking his head as he tried to put the pieces back together in his mind. He knew full well how hard each of his colleagues had tried to put the events of that January day behind them. They all had to, it was the only way they could keep going with their lives and their jobs. "I'll get it," he told them with a distracted mumble, closing the door softly behind him as he entered the reception area, leaving them all speechless.

Mark emerged into the reception area, staring Falcon-Price down with the coldest stare he could manage. He wasn't the kind of man who could hate easily. He never had been and he had always been pleased that he didn't hold grudges against people and let them interfere with his work. The closest he had ever come to letting that happen was the disagreements he had shared with Tom Croydon over the years, the scuffles that had, at times, come to disrupt their job of policing the Mt. Thomas community. But Falcon-Price was the first person that Mark had ever truly hated. He had always perceived Falcon-Price as a reasonable man, but all the while he had been allowing himself to be used as a pawn in a corrupt copper's game. He resented that.

He drew himself up to his full height as he stood opposite Falcon-Price, trying as hard as he could to not let himself cave into the stare that was fixed firmly upon him. It was that stare exactly that he had so often obeyed. "You should know that you're not welcome here," he explained, folding his arms across his jacket and letting his eyes grow ever colder.

"I'm here on bail," Falcon-Price explained, suddenly becoming quite casual and leaning forward against the counter as though he felt right at home. "I've got to check in here every morning at nine. It's nine, so I'm here. I'm just here to live a normal, law-abiding life until my trial, Senior Sergeant."

Mark shook his head. "Bullshit," he spat, bitterness like none he had known before creeping into his tone. "You're here to rub our noses in the fact that you murdered Tom Croydon and Susie Raynor in cold blood…"

"I think you'll find I'm only being charged with conspiracy to murder in relation to Tom's death…"

Mark opened his mouth to reply again, only to be stopped by Amy as she entered the reception area and placed a gentle hand on his arm. The simple, silent gesture instantly halted him, broadening Falcon-Price's overconfident smile. "Well, well, well," he said, regarding Amy with disdain, "seems you and Hasham still have trouble working out what your place is."

Amy shot Falcon-Price a frosty death glare, her emerald eyes becoming bitter and full of hatred brought on from the strong memories of Susie's last moments. Her last actions that saved her and PJ from certain death. "Seems you have the same problem."

She gently pushed Mark away from the counter and back towards the door into the muster room. Just before Amy was able to push him out of sight of Falcon-Price, he called out to him, his voice the most cold and bitter that Amy had ever heard it. "If you know what's good for you, you'll get yourself out of this town and out of our lives."

---------------------------------

Each of the police officers immediately fixed Amy and Mark with expectant stares of disbelief as they returned to the muster room, both of them not quite believing what was happening themselves. Amy finally left Mark's side, returning to PJ as he looked down at her with a desperate curiosity shining brightly in his eyes.

"What's he doing back here?" he asked, rubbing Amy's arm soothingly, noticing how shaky she was after coming face to face with the man who had near destroyed their police team.

Amy drew in a deep breath, nervously brushing strands of hair back from her hair. "To rub our noses in it," she replied, the sound of her voice not just hitting PJ but all of her colleagues hard. They each felt a cold chill go through their spines at the memory of what Falcon-Price had done to them, in particular that one day when almost all of them had watched one of their own die. Amy glanced back over her shoulder to her colleagues, desperately trying to force some strength and confidence into her voice. "He knows what he did to us and he came back here to rub our noses in it."

At Amy's words, Alex rose to his feet silently and stormed away, his head lowered and his eyes dark. PJ went to follow him, only to be stopped by Amy's firm hand on his shoulder. He turned back to her, shaking his head as small tears found their way to his eyes.

"Leave him," she warned him gently. "Just…just leave him."

PJ nodded as he retreated back into their office, slumping down over his desk and staring blindly at the photographs and messy piles of paperwork that covered it. Amy turned to watch him, unable to dismiss the sense that something really bad was going to happen. She couldn't help the overwhelming suspicion that Alex Kirby was close to breaking point and that Falcon-Price's return could be just the last push needed to send him over the edge.

---------------------------------

Mark stared out into the muster room, narrowing his eyes as he regarded the two young figures inside, neither speaking to the other. Amy and PJ had gone out somewhere, a cold burg, they'd claimed. And Alex hadn't been seen since he had stormed out of the station. That had left Kelly and Joss alone in the muster room, for once actually complying with requests to complete paperwork. And, for once, Mark wished that they weren't. He wasn't quite sure that Kelly should be back at work so soon after her attack, but he knew better than to try to keep her away. She was stubborn, that was for sure. So determined to not be the "dying swan".

He finally rose to his feet, numbly making his way out into the muster room and instantly catching his young charges' attention. They stared up at him with blank eyes, waiting expectantly for him to speak.

It took a long moment before he finally found the voice within himself to speak. "I've heard that Falcon-Price is staying at the Commercial," he explained, slowly making his way over to the patrol car keys hanging on their hook and throwing them to Joss, who barely managed to bring himself to catch them. "I want you two to go over there, try to talk some sense into him. I don't want him in this town, not after what he did."

He didn't give either of the officers to reply to his orders before he turned on his heel and returned to his office, pausing as a photograph caught his eye. He slowly reached down and let his hand close over the cool silver frame, staring hard at the figures in the picture one by one. It was the photograph that Chris had taken when Tess and Jonesy had come down to Mt. Thomas all those months ago, the last photograph that had been taken of Susie. He found his expression softening at the young woman in the photo, her eyes shimmering with excitement and a vest for life that Mark had almost come to forget Susie was capable of. Susie had been his little protégé – a good woman who had the ability to be a brilliant police officer, if she could only get her mind off Evan Jones and the other men of Mt. Thomas.

And just when she had finally gotten herself back together after all those years of heartbreak and emotional torture, Falcon-Price had killed her in cold blood.

---------------------------------

Kelly sat back in the passenger seat of the patrol car, her eyes closed in silent contemplation and fatigue as the winter sun streamed in through the windscreen, bathing her in a warm glow. Much to her resentment, Joss was driving, although it seemed he had improved in the time since she had last let him behind the wheel of a car. The silence hung between them, making both of them uneasy. They had tried hard to return their relationship to what it had once been, but it had been harder than either of them could have expected.

She opened an eye lazily, glancing over to Joss as her mind ran with a desperate whirl of thoughts. Her feelings for Joss hadn't changed, they never would, but it was just so hard. They had tried to take their romance back to its comfortable physical level, but the memories were too strong. Overwhelming memories of being absolutely helpless and alone that she couldn't dispel, no matter how hard she tried. She almost didn't have the courage to try to sleep anymore, just in case she saw his face again or smelt that awful aftershave or felt that scratchy woollen beanie covering her face.

Joss glanced over to her, their eyes connecting for a brief moment before Kelly looked away, focusing somewhere beyond the car window as they continued their drive to the Commercial Hotel. "I don't see how they gave Fairy Prince bail," he remarked, suddenly startling Kelly back to attention.

"Fairy Prince?" she asked him, raising an eyebrow in distracted curiosity. Although she tried to focus herself on the issues at hand, she couldn't help the slight feeling of distraction. She'd never been the most organised person in the world – in fact, she was the type of person who lived by the rule of "organised mess" – but she had never been this bad before.

He nodded, a small smile creeping its way into his features. "Yeah," he replied with a nod. "That's what Barry Baxter called him. About the only thing that guy ever got right."

"Yeah…" Kelly replied, looking away again and beginning to twist a loose strand of blonde hair around the fingers of her right hand as she returned to her vacant staring, before eventually closing her eyes again and letting the warm sunlight wash over her. It seemed to whisk her away from the hell that her life had quickly become and, even if only for a moment, made her feel as though everything would be alright again.

---------------------------------

Joss rapped loudly on the door to Falcon-Price's hotel room, while Kelly waited beside him with folded arms. They both stared at the door intently, almost transferring their resentment of the man within to the wooden that separated them. After several long moments, Joss knocked again, this time accompanying it with a loud call of frustration. "Open up, Falcon-Price!" he called, his voice almost making Kelly jump in surprise. "It's the police!"

Kelly leant in closer to the door, narrowing her eyes thoughtfully at the silence that met their ears. She looked up to Joss and nodded as he drew out his asp on cue and began to use it to break the door's lock. After several minutes of silent work, he finally pushed the door open, leaving Kelly backing away and gasping in disbelief at the sight that greeted them.

Blood seemed to cover everything within the room, from the small pub bed to the old black and white television set that sat in the far corner. Joss rose his asp above his head, prepared to strike, as he entered the room, scanning it over briefly before his gaze came to rest on a bloodied body lying, his spine arched backwards over a heater that had thankfully been turned off and his eyes staring blindly up at the ceiling, glazed over and wide.

"Shit," Joss cursed under his breath as he returned his weapon to his belt and scampered across the room with Kelly following closely behind him. He crouched down beside the heater as he checked the man's pulse, before finally shaking his head and turning to look up at Kelly with blank eyes. "It's Falcon-Price," he told her, earning a slow and deliberate nod in reply.

"He's dead," she replied, relief rushing through her body at the thought of the man who had caused them all so much pain lying dead in his own hotel room.


	67. Ep 14: Crossing The Line Pt2

**Part 2**

Lyrics in this part come from _"The Chain" _by Mr. Big.

Amy nodded in thanks to the barmaid standing next to the bar, nervously wringing an old, dirty tea towel in her hands, as she jogged up the stairs to meet PJ and led him off down a corridor towards the room where Falcon-Price lay dead. They eventually caught sight of Kelly standing in the doorway, slumped sideways against the doorframe and staring off into the distance distractedly in body language that Amy recognised instantly. She had to force herself to put Kelly's problems into the background and focus on the issue at hand.

"Joss is in with the body," Kelly explained, nodding towards the room's interior as she finally snapped to attention. "It was pretty violent, whoever did it."

The pair nodded as they headed inside, immediately struck by the blood that covered everything within the room. They tried to force the horror to the backs of their minds as they approached Joss where he stood in the corner of the room, staring down at Falcon-Price as he continued to stare up blindly from where he lay over the heater. "Can't say the bastard didn't have it coming to him," Joss remarked, looking up to his older colleagues with an almost blank expression on his face.

"Yeah…" Amy mumbled in weak agreement as Joss moved away to the door to join Kelly and the two detectives knelt down beside Falcon-Price. They looked over the body, narrowing their eyes as they regarded the man who had once tried to kill them.

PJ shook his head, his eyes becoming distant as his mind began to work in overdrive with suspicions and theories about the case at hand. "Who'd do this?" he mused, snapping Amy away from her own silent thoughts.

"Would you like that list alphabetically?" she asked him with a raised eyebrow. He nodded in reply before looking down to the body and clapping Amy on the shoulder.

"I'll take some happy snaps," he told her. "Maybe you should see if you can find what might have been used in the attack."

Amy nodded, rising to her feet and looking around the room with a hopeless sigh before glancing down to PJ pointedly. "Problem is, his blood is on everything," she pointed out. "Anything in this room could have been used."

* * *

Mark stared blindly out the window of his office at the street beyond, his mind whirring in a rush of white fuzz. Piper Morris was on her way to see him, yet again, and was probably here to grill him on why Falcon-Price had turned up dead right on their doorstep. It seemed to be almost an anticlimax. After everything that Falcon-Price had put them through, he was suddenly just dead. Another guilty person not going to pay for the fact that Tom and Susie's lives had been cut tragically short.

_Secrets, emotions, and wounds concealed_

_Spirits are broken, the deepest scars that'll never heal_

Almost on cue, Piper Morris swept into the station, her jacket pulled tightly around her and her walk carrying a sense of importance and urgency. She invited herself into Mark's office as she always did, motioning for the younger man behind her to enter. Mark narrowed his eyes as he regarded the plainclothes detective Piper had brought with her, before finally they widened in recognition. "Senior Detective Henderson."

Garth Henderson nodded as he slipped over to the other side of the room without a word, leaning casually back against the window as Mark returned to his desk, sitting back in it before Piper had a chance to claim it as she always did.

"Senior Detective Henderson will be leading this investigation," Piper announced, folding her arms across her chest as she tried to maintain superiority in the situation.

Garth looked up to Piper, earning a discreet nod that didn't escape Mark's attention. He turned to Garth, waiting expectantly for him to say his piece, which he could somehow sense wouldn't be something he'd particularly enjoy hearing. "Until further notice," he began, shuffling his feet under Mark's critical stare, "the officers of this station are being investigated for this murder."

Mark began shaking his head in disbelief, turning his gaze from Garth to Piper and back again. "Definitely not," he told them, his voice full of conviction and disbelief. "There's no way that any of my officers committed murder."

"In murder cases like these," Garth explained, letting his voice attain an air of superiority, "we look for people with strong motives. A real reason to hate the victim to the point that they would become capable of murder. You can't deny that you and the other officers of this station have the strongest motives possible."

Mark sat back in his chair, massaging his temples as he struggled to make some kind of sense out of what Garth was saying. What he and his colleagues were being accused of. "We're not murderers," he reminded them with a defiant shake of his head.

"Where are they?" Piper asked, interrupting Mark's defence of his colleagues.

"Constables O'Rourke and Peroni and Senior Detectives Hasham and Fox are at the Commercial Hotel," Mark explained, his tone becoming one of defeat as he realised that talking to Piper and Garth was going to be like talking to a brick wall. In fact, the brick wall might be more understanding.

"What about Sergeant Kirby?"

Mark felt his heart almost stop in his chest momentarily as he considered Alex and what his role could be in all of this. He couldn't deny that Alex had been a little off the rails since Susie had died and even more so since Kari had left. He'd stormed out of the station that morning when they'd found out that Falcon-Price was back in town, but surely he hadn't been so stupid as to go over to his hotel room and murder him. Surely Alex Kirby wasn't that stupid…surely…

"Senior Sergeant?" Piper probed, bringing Mark crashing back to reality. "Where is Sergeant Kirby?"

"Out," Mark answered simply, his heart pounding in his chest as his mind continued to whir with suspicions about his young Sergeant. "He's out."

* * *

Amy and PJ's heads snapped up at the sound of voices growing closer to the hotel room, and familiar voices at that. It took a few seconds for them to realise that one of them was Inspector Piper Morris and even less for Amy to realise that the other was Garth Henderson. She looked back down to the pressed white sheets that she was holding tightly in her hands, almost every centimetre of the fabric stained with bright red blood. It formed a sickening contrast that even the most hardened police officer wouldn't be able to ignore.

Garth and Piper emerged into the hotel room, looking over the two detectives with suspicion in their eyes. "What are you two doing in here?" Piper asked, folding her arms across her chest and drawing her clipboard tightly to her body.

"Well," PJ began, drawing in a deep breath as he motioned down to the body, "I'm taking some photos of the body and Amy over there is trying to find a trace of the weapon."

"This investigation has been taken out of your hands, Detective Hasham," Piper explained, waving a hand towards the doorway. "No Mt. Thomas police are to disturb this crime scene anymore than it has already been disturbed."

PJ rose to his feet and headed for the door with Amy in hot pursuit. Just before he left, he looked to the two St. Davids officers with resentment in his eyes. "It's Senior Detective, by the way."

* * *

Piper paced the length of the Mt. Thomas police station muster room, regarding each of the officers in turn out of the corner of her eye. Garth stood behind her, arms folded across his chest and his expression dark as he refused to meet Amy's gaze. The last time they'd spoken, they'd hardly been on good terms, even if they had been able to remain relatively civil.

"All of the officers of the Mt. Thomas police station will be interviewed and fully investigated in the matter of the murder of Russell Falcon-Price," she began, finally stopping just in front of Garth and staring down each of the police officers before her. "Until each of you can be cleared beyond a shadow of a doubt, you are to have no role in this investigation, is this clear?"

They each nodded, giving a weak grumble of agreement under their breath. They shared furtive glances with one another, each one looking more surprised and offended than the last. This hardly seemed right to them, that after everything that Falcon-Price had put them through in life, he was still torturing them in death.

"Sergeant Kirby is also to be called back to the station immediately, Senior Sergeant," Piper instructed, nodding to Mark. "We will begin interviews once the autopsy results have returned."

As Piper finished and made a beeline for Mark's office, closing the door before he had a chance to follow her inside, Garth headed slowly for the CI office, bringing a look of determination to Amy's face that PJ recognised instantly. As she went to follow Garth, PJ grabbed her arm gently and drew her closer. "Go easy on him," he warned her softly. "Or you'll make things much, much worse for all of us."

Amy folded her arms across her chest as she followed Garth inside the office she shared with PJ. She closed the door behind her and leant back against it as she fixed her former lover with a cold death glare. It was the glare she reserved for him and him alone, a glare of betrayal and hurt that not even time or PJ could truly erase. He looked up from where he sat at her desk, scanning through sheets of paper and photographs that had been stuffed hurriedly into his folder. He was no doubt tidying them into a meticulous order. That was classic Garth – a control freak and a neat freak. Not that different from her, in some respects.

"It's nothing personal, Amy," he told her, still unable to let his gaze meet hers. "You'd be doing the same thing if the situation were reversed."

She shook her head, still not letting her hardened glare wane. There were times when she felt that the glare was her only defence from Garth. He was almost like PJ at times. He knew her too well and could read her almost as though she were a book. The real difference was that she trusted PJ with her inner self, while she didn't like the mere thought of Garth anywhere near it. "That's total bullshit, Garth, and you know it," she told him firmly as she closed off some of the distance between them, doing her best to her use her position standing over him to her advantage. "Everything with you is personal."

He sighed as he looked away, focusing instead on his hands as he continued to tidy the mess inside his folder. A compulsive neat freak, Amy couldn't help but reflect. There were people who'd call her that at times. PJ for starters when she made him clean out his collection of mouldy pizza boxes that had amassed over the years since his house had burnt down in 2003. He finally let his hands come to rest over a photograph of Falcon-Price's face, the eyes becoming haunting and almost too much to bear. "It's just work, Amy," he tried to explain, his tone conveying a sense of exasperation. "Nothing more. We've got to look at people with motives for killing Falcon-Price and there's no one with bigger motives than you guys…"

"My colleagues aren't capable of murder, Garth," Amy pointed out with an indignant huff as she let her glare further intensify. "I know these people and they just aren't capable of it."

Garth narrowed his eyes as he finally looked up from his hands and back up to Amy, still unable to meet her eyes. "Wasn't it you who once told me that everybody's capable of murder?" he asked, his expression softening at the remembrance passing through Amy's face. "It all just depends on how much you're willing to take…how far you're willing to be pushed before you snap…"

Amy felt her death glare vanish without a trace at Garth's words. He was right, she had once told him that, just when she had been accusing his colleagues of conspiracy to murder, if memory served her right. But she still couldn't quite admit that Garth had a point, that one of her colleagues could be responsible. She shook her head, refusing to completely give in. "If you're working by the rules of motive," she told him as she folded her arms across her chest in an attempt to retain some sense of professionalism, "then I could be the murderer."

"Well…are you?" Garth asked, his voice probing and almost accusatory.

She felt an offended anger well within her. She could see how Garth could accuse her colleagues, but surely not her. "No!" she snapped in reply, drawing away from Garth in disbelief that he would even ask her such a question. "Of course not! I'm not going to admit that I ever liked the guy or that I don't hate him for what he did to Tom Croydon and Susie Raynor, but I didn't kill him! Trust me, Garth. If I was going to throw away my career and my life to snap and kill someone, it wouldn't be Falcon-Price. Aside from anything else, I was out attending a cold burg at the time he was murdered."

"No, you weren't," he replied, almost as though he hadn't taken any notice of Amy's words. He shuffled through the paper sitting inside his blue police folder before drawing out a slip of paper with a time scribbled on it and thrusting it in Amy's face. "Estimated time of death," he explained, folding his arms across his chest. "I've checked, you and PJ weren't at Mrs. Harrison's house at that time. In fact, there's at least a good ten minutes missing between when you left Mrs. Harrison's house and when you returned to the station, factoring in driving time."

Amy shook her head, handing the paper back to Garth as frustration grew within her. "So you think I'm the murderer?" she asked him, narrowing her eyes in disbelief. "I would have thought you knew me better than that."

"No, I don't think you're the murderer," Garth replied, sitting forward over Amy's desk and accidentally knocking a pile of her paperwork to the ground. She glanced down at the mess on the floor briefly, her frustration growing. For a compulsive neat freak, Garth could sure be clumsy when he wanted to be. "We haven't been able to find a weapon, as yet. But whatever it was, it was wielded with great force to cave Falcon-Price's skull in like that and cause the extent of the injuries and blood loss that occurred. Not likely to be the work of a woman. Which means that you and Constable O'Rourke couldn't have inflicted the injuries."

She gave a roll of her eyes, mumbling to herself as she looked away. "At last, we have progress!"

"But you and PJ were still missing at the estimated time of death," Garth continued, trying to regard Amy as professionally as he could.

"And what are you trying to suggest with that?" she demanded, leaning forward and bracing herself on her desk. She glared down at Garth as best she could, well aware of the fact that she couldn't muster another death glare at him. "That I had PJ kill Falcon-Price for me? That we conspired together to kill him?"

He shook his head, finally losing control and pounding his fists down hard on her desk. "No!" he snapped, sending Amy jumping back in surprise. He suddenly realised what he had done and became suddenly very downtrodden. "I'm sorry," he apologised quietly, looking away momentarily before finally daring to meet Amy's eyes for the first time in that entire day. "But somebody killed Falcon-Price, and logic tells me that it's someone with connections to this police station."


	68. Ep 14: Crossing The Line Pt3

**Part 3**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Favourite Year" _by the Dixie Chicks.

Amy stared out into the muster room from the doorway of the CI office, watching as Garth, Piper and Kelly emerged from the interview room. Despite Garth's claim that a woman couldn't have killed Falcon-Price, he had still insisted on interrogating her as though she was a criminal. She wasn't quite sure if Kelly was up to this so soon after her rape. She knew better than anyone what Kelly was suffering through and knew that this wasn't good for her emotional state, but she knew that there was almost nothing she could do, not now, anyway. Kelly was being typical Kelly and refusing to play the "dying swan".

Garth headed for the CI office, silently pushing past Amy and returning to where he had taken over her desk. He had since tidied up his folder and the paperwork of Amy's that he had disturbed, but had left PJ's desk untouched. Garth was a control freak, but he recognised rank and he knew that PJ was an officer who outranked him in almost every aspect of life, even if not in the job.

She turned to stare at Garth as he sorted through paperwork, slipping a sheet of typed print that was no doubt Kelly's statement into its rightful place amongst the pile of notes and photographs. She finally drew in a deep breath, folding her arms across her chest. "You want to know where those ten minutes went for PJ and I today, don't you?" she asked him, causing him to look up to her in surprise. "We were talking."

"Talking?"

Amy nodded at Garth's confused reply, shaking her head to brush a strand of dark hair back from her eyes. "A lot has happened to this station in the last couple of months," she explained, trying not to let the emotion creep into her voice. "PJ and I decided we needed to have a good talk about it, so we pulled the CI car over to the side of the road and we talked."

Garth narrowed his eyes, shaking his head. "What were you talking about that you couldn't talk about at the station?"

"Just…" Amy trailed off momentarily, not quite sure of how much she was willing to tell Garth Henderson, even to clear her own name. "Just a lot of really complicated stuff that's happened lately between the officers of this station. We don't have witnesses, so you're just going to have to trust me. We had nothing to do with Falcon-Price's death."

He nodded, sighing dejectedly as he looked back down to the paperwork in his folder. "I know that," he told her softly, his tone almost one of defeat. "Mark, Kelly and Joss are all alibied and I know that you and PJ wouldn't have done it. But Sergeant Alex Kirby…what can you tell me about him?"

Amy drew away, the mention of Alex's name forcing her to consider possibilities she didn't quite like. She was so certain that her colleagues weren't capable of murder, but she couldn't be so certain about Alex. He'd been so out of control and out of character since Susie had been killed and she knew that he'd stormed out of the station and was still missing. She knew that she'd defend PJ, Mark, Kelly and Joss to the death on this issue – they were all good people who didn't have it in them to kill some out of malice and hatred – but Alex was a different story. Her gut was telling her that she couldn't defend him like she could the others.

"Alex is…" she paused, biting her bottom lip distractedly as she tried to find a way to describe Alex without incriminating him accidentally. "He was really close to Susie Raynor, the Senior Constable Falcon-Price murdered. He cared about her so much and then, just when he and Susie seemed to be getting on the right track…" She shook her head, desperately trying to shake the memories of Susie's death from her mind. She knew she'd probably never be able to truly shake them away. Susie had given her life to save her and PJ from certain death. She could never forget that.

"Mark said he'd been off the rails, especially since that other Senior Constable left town, Kari Izumi or whatever her name was," Garth pointed out, realising how much it was paining Amy to talk about the incident that had left them all shattered. "Any object could have been used as the weapon. Amy…Alex Kirby has the means, the motive and the opportunity. As far as I'm concerned, he's our number one suspect."

She shook her head, small hot tears forming in her eyes as the thought of the cocky young Leading Senior Constable who used to call her Foxy came to mind. She still remembered that man well – the bag she had once described as "trendy", the metrosexual shirt, the nickname she had always resented…not the man that Garth was now suggesting was a murderer.

_Holding onto the memories_

_Of when we were younger_

_I can't forget_

"No way," she told him, her voice becoming shaky and uncertain. "He didn't do this."

Garth stared at Amy hard for a long moment, before finally sitting forward over her desk casually. "Part of you agrees with me, doesn't it?" he asked her, his eyes probing deep within her own as she reluctantly allowed herself to make eye contact. "Part of you thinks that Alex Kirby did this."

She tried desperately to shake her head, to jump to Alex's defence and vehemently deny that Alex could have any connection to Falcon-Price's death. But she simply couldn't bring herself to do so. She eventually nodded her head, looking away with shame and disbelief in her eyes. She did agree with what Garth was suggesting, no matter how much she wished she didn't.

* * *

Amy ran a fingertip along the rim of her coffee mug, staring down within its depths while PJ stood at the sink of the station's mess room, preparing his own cup of the warm brown liquid that they so often sought refuge in. She began to drum her fingers on the mug, before finally looking up to PJ, desperately seeking answers she didn't have. "I don't want to think that Alex could do this, Peej, I really don't."

PJ nodded, sighing as he turned to face Amy, sadness shining in his blue eyes. He didn't like to admit it, but he knew Amy was right. Especially after the incident two weeks ago with the rape investigation, he couldn't quite trust Alex Kirby. "I know," he told her, staring blindly up to the mess room ceiling, letting his mind run wild with suspicions and theories. "Until a couple of weeks ago, I wouldn't have thought that he was capable of murder either…"

Amy pushed her coffee away, slumping over the table and letting her head sink down into the crook of her arm. She stared up at PJ, letting their gaze meet as they both desperately sought the answers they lacked from the other, without much success. She opened her mouth to continue, when Kelly suddenly made her entrance.

At the sight of Amy and PJ's downtrodden demeanours, Kelly's face suddenly grew red as she approached the sink, grabbing a coffee cup from the nearby shelf. PJ took his cue to leave, slipping past Kelly and planting a brief kiss on Amy's lips before closing the door behind him.

Amy watched Kelly silently for several long minutes as the young blonde slowly made herself a coffee, before finally finding it within herself to speak. "I know how hard all this is, Kel," she began, her voice almost catching in her throat. She wasn't very good at admitting that she had been abused, which was probably why most of the people who knew had had to find out for themselves. She knew she had to tell Kelly now though, she knew how horrible it was to feel alone and she couldn't let Kelly go through that.

Kelly froze, almost slamming the coffee cup to the sink in an uncharacteristic display of anger. She didn't turn to face Amy, instead choosing to stare blindly at the wall in front of her as tears found their way to her usually bright eyes. "What would you know about this?" she asked, her tone gruff and uncharacteristic of Kelly O'Rourke.

"I…I know…" Amy continued, nodding to herself as her eyes became distant as a familiar pain welled within her. "I…I was…I was sexually abused as a child."

Kelly's face grew blank as she continued to stare at the wall before her, the whir of thoughts and pain that her mind had been just seconds ago was surprisingly blank. She'd always wondered what went on within the head of Amy Fox, but she supposed they all had at one time or another. It was hard not to, really. Amy was such a mystery woman that it almost begged suspicion. But she would never have expected sexual abuse, although, in hindsight, it made all the sense in the world.

"My parents were killed in a car accident when I was young," Amy continued, taking Kelly's stunned silence as a prompt to go on. "I was taken to live with my aunt and uncle. My uncle, he…he…he'd come to my room at night when he thought no one would notice and he…he…" She closed her eyes, desperately trying to force some conviction into her wavering voice. "He raped me, night after night for four years."

Kelly finally turned to face her, the shock and disbelief, mingling with a kind of realisation, evident in her usually clear and bright eyes. She wringed her hands together in front of her stomach, her mouth hanging open and her whole body appearing quite numb. "How did you cope?" she asked, her voice breaking as it broke unevenly free from the choking lump in her throat. "How did you cope with it all? The…feeling of fear, of being…being…"

"Helpless?" Amy finished for her, her mind drifting back to a warm April day over three years ago when she had once described the familiar sensation to a room of total strangers, all the while hoping that the psychologist sitting next to her wouldn't pick up on the deeper truth to her story. "The feeling of helplessness?" At Kelly's bemused expression of disbelief, she felt compelled to continue for her once again. "And the sense of distraction, just being unable to concentrate on anything else around you?"

Tears slowly pricked their way down Kelly's pale cheeks as she slipped across the room, sliding down into the chair opposite Amy and staring at her with wide eyes. There seemed to be a sort of admiration shining there, respect for Amy for having survived the emotional torture that now lay before Kelly like an impossible journey that she would never be able to emerge from. A long silence lingered between them as Kelly continued to stare at Amy, while Amy felt unable to meet the younger blonde's eyes and instead focused within her coffee cup to where the liquid was slowly cooling with every second that passed.

Finally Amy spoke again, drawing out a pen and one of her cards from the pocket of her black jacket. Kelly turned her gaze downwards to the card as Amy turned it over and began to scribble out a name and number on the blank side, her eyes narrowed in concentration, as though the simple act of writing this caused her great mental effort. Kelly stared at the name as a new thought sprung to life in her mind, whirling and twisting amongst the others. The name sounded familiar, but she couldn't quite put a reason to it or a face.

Amy pushed the pen aside, picking up the card and offering it over to Kelly. The younger blonde contemplated it for a long moment before eventually taking it from Amy's fingertips. "This guy's name is Bill Lapscott…"

Kelly's eyes widened in recognition as she suddenly realised where she knew the name from. It was that psychologist that Amy, PJ and Garth had been investigating for the serial killings over three years ago, while she and Joss had been chasing stray elephants and investigating non-existent chocolate thieves within the station and an assortment of other equally boring and seemingly unimportant tasks. She shook herself back to attention as Amy continued.

"He runs a clinic for victims of sexual abuse, but I think he'd be a really good person for you to talk to. He's a really nice guy and really understands what this is like. And if you're not entirely comfortable talking to him, he has a lot of contacts he could recommend to you. I had several sessions with him and he helped me, Kel. He helped me a lot." She paused before continuing. "And I think he can help you too."

Kelly nodded, looking down to the card as she considered what Amy was telling her. She didn't like being a dying swan, but she was beginning to wonder if she had any choice. And she felt less like a dying swan talking to Amy about this, especially since she seemed to know what was going on inside her head. She finally stuffed the card into the pocket of her warm police jacket, before looking up to Amy again with hopelessness shining clearly in her misty eyes. "I can't…I can't be intimate…intimate with Joss anymore."

Amy nodded in understanding, reaching out to take Kelly's hand in hers and letting the warmth of her hands wash over Kelly's cold skin. "It's hard," she told her, in a soothing and sympathetic voice. "It's really hard. Trust me. It took me years to find the confidence to be close to someone like that again. It'll take time, Kelly. But Joss cares about you so much, he'll wait."

"How much time?" Kelly asked, or more accurately pleaded, with her. Her eyes bore deep within Amy's own, searching for answers that she needed more than anything else in the world. "How long will it take before this feeling of being dirty and worthless and helpless goes away? How long will it be before I can be comfortable with Joss again? How long until he gives up on me entirely and walks away?"

Amy rose to her feet, crossing the table and wrapping her arms around Kelly as the blonde began to sob heavily into her shoulder, her cries of desperation and pain echoing through the mess room as Amy rubbed her hair in a weak attempt to soothe the woman in her arms. She could physically feel Kelly's pain radiating through her and it made her heart ache in her chest. What kind of a world was it when not even Sunshine Kelly could find the light in the darkness?

* * *

Amy returned to the CI office, desperately trying to brush the stray tears from her red eyes before Garth or PJ had the chance to notice them. PJ was sitting at his desk, purposely leaning back in his chair with his feet resting on top of his desk as he perused through the contents of a folder. He gave off a sense of casual confidence that Amy could tell was making Garth uneasy. He was still sitting at her desk, shuffling through the statements of each of her colleagues as they lay in order of descending rank across her desk. Typical Garth – making up for the lack of control he had as a child by relishing in his control over the paper before him. It was almost enough to make Amy's heart ache.

PJ's expression softened as he looked to her, sitting forward and tossing the file over to a corner of his desk where it landed next to the base of his overhead lamp. He rose to his feet, crossing the short distance between them to brush hair back from her cheeks where it had been clinging to them due to the dried tear stains. "Are you okay?" he asked her soothingly, rubbing a hand up and down her back gently.

She nodded as she pulled away from his arms, acutely aware of Garth's gaze fixed firmly upon them. Realising why she was so uneasy, PJ quickly returned to his chair, leaning back again, but this time his attempt at confidence was much less convincing.

Garth didn't speak for a long moment, before finally directing a curt and cold comment to PJ. "I need you to go and find Alex Kirby, wherever he's gone off to," he told him, not even bothering to look up from his statements. PJ nodded and rose to his feet, giving Amy's arm an encouraging squeeze before he disappeared out through the back door to the car park.

Amy moved towards PJ's desk, however Garth's sharp voice cut into her thoughts before she had the chance to reach it. "You're in a relationship with PJ Hasham, aren't you?"

She felt a tight knot form in her chest at Garth's question, before she finally nodded in reply, looking away from Garth and staring down at her dark boots. He wordlessly rose to his feet, brushing past her as he headed across the muster room and to the office that Mark and Piper were sharing for the day.


	69. Ep 14: Crossing The Line Pt4

**Part 4**

Alex stared down at the bloodied object in his hand, barely distinguishable as the cheap fluoro-coloured lamp it had been. The top was missing, clearly broken off in the struggle and bits of the heavy plastic were chipped and cracked. Thick, dried crimson blood covered almost every centimetre of the lamp's surface, sending a sickening chill through his body as he turned it over in his hands, contemplating it through narrow eyes.

Some of the blood hadn't quite dried and had come off on his hands, leaving patches of dark red. The sight kept tearing his mind away from the situation at hand and back to the tragedies that had set the wheels of this disaster in motion. Two innocent and good coppers gunned down in the places where they should have felt safest, both for doing nothing more than their jobs.

Patches of fluoro blue shone through the blood, catching Alex's eye and sending his mind hurtling back to the woman he had held in his arms all those months ago as she had taken her final breath. The colour reminded him so much of Susie Raynor's eyes as he had stared into them, so full of fear and pain and yet a certain kind of peace as she had rested in his arms for the final time. It took everything Alex Kirby had not to send the lamp crashing to the floor.

He turned back to look over his shoulder at the young man sitting on his couch, his bent over so far that his head was almost between his knees as he covered his eyes with his hands, their pale skin covered in the same blood that now stained the broken lamp in Alex's hands. Alex's eyes softened at the hopelessness that radiated from the man sitting on the couch, from his messy blonde hair to his hands, which shook as he slowly slid them away from his eyes and back through his hair. His blue eyes shone with tears of shock and disbelief as he slowly looked up to Alex, suddenly aware of the police officer staring at him.

Alex felt a choking lump rise in his throat as he reluctantly met the man's gaze, suddenly taken aback. Lochie Raynor reminded him so much more of Susie Raynor than he had remembered him doing.

He slowly approached Lochie, reaching out to give the young man's shoulder a comforting squeeze. Logic was telling him not to agree to this, that this could put him in a position perhaps even more compromising than the one that Roger Dean had left him dangling in, but he couldn't let his colleagues at the poor guy. He shot Lochie a weak smile as he closed his hand around the lamp and nodded towards the bathroom. "You go and clean yourself up," he told him in a blank and emotionless tone. "I'll get rid of this."

* * *

Amy returned to the CI office, drawing in a deep breath to steady herself, only to find her racing heart slowing in her chest at the sight of PJ sitting once again behind his desk and Garth nowhere to be seen. For less than half a second, she was almost able to convince herself that none of this was happening, that Falcon-Price wasn't dead or even back in town, that Alex Kirby wasn't the prime suspect in his death and that Garth Henderson wasn't making her life hell. PJ was busy on the phone and waved off her impending words as he listened to the person speaking on the other end of the line, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully as his mind worked a mile a minute. Amy recognised the distant look in PJ's eyes as she slipped back behind her desk, hiding Garth's blue police folder underneath some of her own paperwork in an attempt to block him from her mind.

PJ finally replaced the receiver in its cradle as he jumped to his feet, his expression almost one of childish delight as he snatched his leather jacket up from the back of his chair and looked down to Amy, who was staring up at him with confusion shining clearly in her emerald eyes. "That was the principal of Mt. Thomas Primary," he explained as he pulled the jacket over his shoulders and adjusted it. "Apparently a couple of kids have just found a bloodied and broken lamp on the school grounds. One guess at where it came from."

She continued to stare up at him in confusion for a brief moment, until realisation spread through her features and she jumped to her feet, grabbing her mustard coat from the nearby hook. "Falcon-Price's hotel room?"

"Bingo."

* * *

PJ thanked the principal of Mt. Thomas Primary in a distracted voice as he followed Amy over to a secluded area of the playground. The area was almost entirely dirt and was closed off by a curtain of trees and the side wall of a corrugated iron sports' shed standing nearby. He had to crouch down to avoid a low-hanging branch as he slipped in to where she was crouched in the dirt, brushing the dirt off the blood-covered lamp with her gloved hands.

He narrowed his eyes as he regarded it, before looking up to Amy in deep thought. "Somebody could have thrown it over the fence," he mused, turning his gaze over to the wire fence nearby and earning a nod from Amy as she stared at it hard. "Probably thought nobody would ever see it here, or that we'd never suspect that a murder weapon would be hidden at a primary school."

"Their plan didn't really work then, did it?" Amy asked, turning her gaze back to PJ as he continued to stare at the fence at the street beyond. She could tell that he was surveying the cover that the trees gave the little alcove from the world beyond the school. "Turns out a few kids like using this as a little cubby house."

PJ nodded at Amy's words, before suddenly looking down to lamp that Amy still had her fingertips closed tightly around. "So," he began, startling Amy from her thoughts, "do we have any way of tying the lamp to the Commercial Hotel before we send it over to Forensics and they find Falcon-Price's blood all over it?"

"Yep," Amy replied, holding it up and motioning to an area that she had been able to clear the blood and dirt off. He closed his hand around hers on the lamp as he shot her a small cheeky smile out of the corner of his mouth. She quickly managed to dismiss the electricity pulsing through her body as she drew his attention back to the matter at hand. "See this stamp?"

PJ stared hard at the dark black stamp on the lamp, his eyes widening at the writing on it. "The Commercial Hotel, Mt. Thomas," he mused, before turning his gaze to Amy and meeting her eyes. "This is the weapon."

* * *

Amy headed into the mess room, passing a tired hand across her weary eyes. Kelly and Joss were out searching for Alex while a uniform from St. Davids was running the lamp over to Forensics so they could examine it more closely. As yet, she hadn't told Garth about the weapon, but she knew that he would have found out by now. He was as pushy as she was when it came to things he wanted to know.

Her heart began to race in her chest as fingers closed tightly around her wrist and she spun in alarm to find herself face to face with Garth, their faces the closest they'd been since the last time they'd kissed all those years ago. She was held in place by pure fear for a long moment, before Garth finally spoke to her in a voice that dripped of offence. "Why didn't you tell me that you'd found the murder weapon?"

She finally pulled away from Garth's grasp; crossing the room to the sink to make the coffees she had promised PJ. She busied herself with organising and reorganising the mugs and searching needlessly for the coffee tin, anything to avoid having to answer Garth's question. She eventually found herself turning to face him, her expression stern and blank. "Why?" she demanded hotly. "PJ and I aren't suspects, you've admitted that yourself. What should it matter if we take part in the investigation."

"You're undermining me," Garth told her, stepping towards her slowly. "You are purposely undermining my investigation. I thought we'd agreed that Alex Kirby is a suspect in this investigation." He paused for a long moment, meeting Amy's eyes weakly and noticing the vulnerability shining there. "This is about what happened in Homicide, isn't it?"

Amy drew away, shaking her head profusely at the suggestion as an emotion she barely understood rose within her. "What about Homicide, Garth?"

"Lisa Craig, Lloyd Johnson…ringing any bells?"

She stared at Garth hard as small tears of fear and remembrance filled her eyes. She looked away, staring down at the floor of the mess room, focusing on the dark scuff marks left by her colleagues rather than the pain that Garth insisted on reminding her of. He finally seemed to have recognised his mistake, as he nodded slowly and looked away. "I'm sorry," he apologised quietly as he reached out to Amy to take her hand, only for her to knock his advances away. "I'm getting a warrant to search Alex Kirby's flat. His disappearance is almost an admission of guilt, Amy. And Forensics will probably find something on the weapon too."

"Alex Kirby is an immature, insensitive and right bastard at times," she told Garth, desperately trying to keep the conviction in her voice. "He was shattered by Susie Raynor's death and he hasn't been the same since. My gut is telling me that he's involved, but I can't believe that he's a killer. Not a cold-blooded one."

Garth thought for a long moment over Amy's words, before finally nodding in agreement. "Perhaps," he conceded, leaning back against the nearest wall and folding his arms across his chest. "But maybe it wasn't a cold-blooded killing. Maybe it wasn't premeditated murder. It could have been an impulse killing, or even self-defence. But Alex Kirby is a suspect in a manslaughter, at the very least. I know he's your colleague, but you have to face facts…"

"I know!" Amy snapped, turning away and leaning over the sink. Hot tears were finding their way to her eyes, no matter how hard she tried to dismiss them. She brushed them away as best she could with the back of her hand, trying desperately not to start sobbing and going completely to pieces in front of Garth.

"You weren't in a relationship with him as well, were you?"

Amy's head snapped up momentarily at Garth's suggestion as her mind considered it briefly. "Me? Alex? Relationship?" she asked, staring at the wall ahead of her before lowering her head again and trying to brush the tears away. "Not likely."

He nodded, opening his mouth to speak, only to be interrupted by Piper's entrance. She brandished a piece of paper in his direction, distracted for only a brief moment by Amy leaning over the sink, obviously trying not to cry. "The search warrant's been approved," she explained, her voice almost monotone as Garth took the paper from her fingertips. She left almost as quickly as she had come, closing the door silently behind her. Garth shot Amy a final glance before leaving her alone in the mess room with her thoughts.

She couldn't get Garth's words out of her head. Her and Alex? In a relationship? It was almost laughable. But then again, she couldn't help thinking over Alex's actions towards her when he had first arrived. The nickname, the way he had looked at her…had he liked her? Had she closed herself off to him so much that she had completely missed what could have possibly been a very real crush? Or was Garth sowing the seeds of doubt in her head, playing a manipulative mind game with her until she saw things his way, as he always seemed to do?

* * *

PJ narrowed his eyes as he stood behind Piper and Garth on Alex Kirby's doorstep, feeling quite alone without Amy Fox at his side. The number of times that he had been without Amy while out on a job had been minimal over the last few months. They'd gotten their own rhythm, their own way of handling cases that worked well for them. Standing there while she was back at the station felt almost the same as if he had been standing there, stark naked.

Piper and Garth had requested his help with the search of Alex's flat and he had agreed, even though he knew that Amy was upset over whatever it was that Garth had said to her. Someone had to be there, to be in Alex's corner in all of this. He knew that Amy was beginning to doubt Alex and he was too, but murder didn't seem quite right. It didn't sit right with him.

Garth knocked loudly on the door, calling out while pressing the doorbell impatiently. Garth barely gave anyone inside half a minute to react before knocking the door in with a flying kick, drawing his gun and waving it around the hallway as he entered. Piper followed, gun also drawn, however she seemed more grounded and less gung-ho than Garth was.

Finally PJ followed the two inside, glancing back over his shoulder to assess the damage that Garth had done to the front door. If Alex Kirby was innocent, then Garth was going to have hell to pay for that. He slowly made his way down the hallway, deliberately taking his time as he stopped to stare at the different things along the way.

Photographs sat on little tables along the walls, some of Alex's family and some of Susie's. In fact, PJ was sure that he could see one of Susie and Brad hidden behind their silver cordless phone. He couldn't help but feel as though he was stirring the dead, as though he was invading Susie's right to privacy in death. Every inch of the flat seemed to stand as a monument to her, as though it had been untouched.

He suddenly became aware of voices echoing from a nearby room. He followed the sounds until he found himself standing in the doorway to a room that carried a very familiar and distinct smell, one that PJ recognised instantly as Susie's smell. Piper and Garth were standing inside, both lost for words as they stared at the room. It was obvious that Susie's parents had been there and taken some of her belongings, but a lot had obviously been untouched for well over six months. It almost scared PJ. Had this been how Alex was coping? Going home to this flat every night, relishing in the only traces of Susie that he had left while he left a trail of emotional destruction behind him? A trail that had come to include Kari, Kelly and Amy over the recent months, PJ reflected, narrowing his eyes as he thought over what he was seeing.

"Well…" Garth mumbled, finally daring to break the awkward silence. "This is an obsession if I've ever seen one before."

"He loved her," PJ told him, feeling almost angry at the careless way Garth had made his comment. "He loved Susie Raynor so much that he was willing to live without her just to see her happy. He's got nothing left of her anymore except what's in this room and this flat. You've got no idea how he feels."

Garth seemed to size PJ up for a long moment, as if trying to decide whether or not it would be worth taking him on, before changing his mind. He nodded in reluctant agreement with PJ's words and pushed past, heading down the corridor to the bathroom, mumbling under his breath something about Alex needing to clean up if he'd killed someone. Piper turned to PJ, her eyes almost sympathetic as she met PJ's gaze for a brief moment. It seemed that they shared an understanding, if only for half a second.

"Inspector! PJ!"

PJ and Piper's connection was broken almost as quickly as it had formed as Garth's voice echoed down the hallway of the flat from the bathroom. The two jogged to meet him, finding Garth crouched down on the pale blue tiles and holding a blue denim jacket in his gloved hands. PJ crouched down beside him, reaching out to take the jacket in his own hands and staring hard at the numerous blood stains that covered it. Beneath it lay a pair of dark blue pants, police uniform pants, perhaps, that were also covered in blood.

He began shaking his head, not quite able to believe what he was seeing. He had had to face colleagues who had committed crimes before, Adam Cooper and Jack Lawson for a start, but this was getting to him more than he could have ever expected it to. "Alex," he whispered, closing his eyes in defeat as he released his grip on the clothes, letting them fall back onto the floor. "What have you done?"

Piper's portable radio suddenly crackled into life at her hip as Kelly's voice suddenly interrupted the relative quiet. Piper snatched it up as Garth began to collect the clothes up in his arms, taking them back outside to the car out the front. Just as Garth returned, Piper turned to face the two detectives before him. "That was Constable O'Rourke," she told them, "she and Constable Peroni have just found Alex Kirby in the National Park and they're taking him back to the police station now."


	70. Ep 14: Crossing The Line Pt5

**Part 5**

Lyrics in this part come from _"These Walls" _by Teddy Geiger and _"Fall To Pieces" _by Avril Lavigne.

PJ followed Piper and Garth back into the police station, watching them as they headed off into Mark's office where Kelly and Joss were waiting for him before retreating to the CI office, where Amy was sitting at his desk, her head resting in the crook of her arm. She rose her head in interest as he closed the door behind him, approaching her slowly. He opened his mouth to speak, but Amy didn't give him the chance. "Did you find anything at the flat?"

He nodded as he perched himself on the corner of his desk, lowering his voice as though someone were trying to listen in. "Bloodied clothes and Alex's shrine to Susie Raynor."

"Oh God…" Amy whispered, shaking her head as she stared hard at the wall behind her own desk for a long moment as she began to chew her bottom lip thoughtfully. "He's stuffed, PJ. He's really stuffed. He wouldn't talk to Kelly and Joss or even Mark…he's got means…"

"…Motive and opportunity," PJ finished for her with a saddened nod. "I know." He began shaking his head, narrowing his eyes in heavy thought. "Every little bit of evidence is pointing straight to Alex Kirby. His fingerprints are on the lamp, he's got every reason to want to see Falcon-Price dead, he's got no alibi…but my gut…my gut keeps telling me that there's something we're missing. Something we're not seeing…something else…"

"Or someone else," Amy suggested with a half-hearted shrug. She began to narrow her own eyes as she looked up to meet PJ's gaze, well aware of Garth and Piper as Mark led them to the interview room, no doubt to grill Alex over where he had been over the last few hours. "We're missing someone here, Peej. Someone with motive…someone Garth wouldn't be expecting…someone connected to this station, to Tom or Susie…"

PJ sighed, letting his mind drift away. "Tom had no end of mates from the army, school and whatever else," he mused in a barely audible voice. "Maybe one of them decided to avenge his death…"

"Let's focus on Susie, then," Amy suggested as she sat up a little straighter.

"Good idea," PJ agreed with a nod. "The only people I can think of with connections to Tom off the top of my head are his daughters and Chris, none of whom would have done it. What do we know about Susie's family?"

Amy sighed, brushing a strand of hair back from her face as her mind began to go into overdrive. Alex was in the interview room being grilled and possibly hammered into a corner. She had no doubt that Alex was connected and she knew that he was likely to confess if he felt pressured enough. She desperately tried to force her mind back, searching her memory for anything to do with the Raynors, almost as though it were a computer database. Suddenly, one event sprang to mind. "Christine Susan Raynor," she whispered, her words almost going unnoticed by PJ.

"What?" PJ demanded, folding his arms against his chest. "Who?"

She looked up to PJ, the tiniest bit of hope in her eyes. "Christine Susan Raynor, Susie's niece. She was dropped in the nursery back in December last year and Susie's brother took the entire emergency department hostage with me in it."

He nodded in memory. His recollection of that incident was a lot sketchier than Amy's seemed to be, although he supposed that he had been exhausted and stressed at the time. All he could remember clearly was the fear of losing Amy before he even got a chance to set things right between them and the elation of having her in his arms, safe. But he could remember bits and pieces of the case. "What ended up happening to…um…"

"Lochie Raynor," Amy finished for him. "He was charged with affray, false imprisonment, conduct endangering life, threats to kill, assault with a deadly weapon, attempted murder…we really threw the book at the poor guy…I overheard Susie disowning him just after we charged him. He lost his daughter, his marriage, his sister's love and his self-respect all in the matter of a day. And then he lost any chance of reconciling with Susie for good not long after."

"Not exactly a man with a lot to live for, is he?" PJ whispered, sighing as he contemplated everything that Amy had just told him about Lochie. "I gather he got bail, then."

She nodded, continuing to bite her bottom lip. "Yeah," she told him with a nod. "Kelly and I were the investigating officers and we didn't see a point in not recommending that he be given bail. His older brother, Daniel Raynor, put up the bail. He hasn't gone to trial yet. Lochie's lawyer had it put off on compassionate grounds after Susie died and they haven't rescheduled yet."

Her eyes suddenly widened in realisation. She looked up to PJ, only to find that he had done the same thing. It was instantly understood that they had both come to the same conclusion about the situation and how Alex Kirby fit into it.

"Alex isn't the murderer," Amy whispered, sitting back in PJ's chair and craning her neck to peer anxiously out into the muster room, keeping an eye out for any sign of Garth or the others emerging from the interview room. "Lochie Raynor is."

* * *

PJ headed down the corridor, Amy several metres behind him, his hands clenched into fists in the pockets of his jacket as he watched Mark, Garth and Piper emerge from the interview room, their expressions each expressing very different feelings about the situation. Mark looked as though he couldn't quite believe what was going on, Garth looked almost pleased with himself and Piper looked quite unmoved. He narrowed his eyes as he concentrated on what the group were saying and caught small snatches of their conversation. From what he could tell, Alex had confessed or near enough to it.

As soon as the trio were gone, he motioned for Amy to join him and they approached the interview room door. Amy peered through the glass pane in the door, biting her bottom lip as she shook her head in disbelief. It was obvious that she had heard what the others had said. "Why would he confess when he didn't do it?" she mused, not tearing her gaze away from Alex Kirby as he sat in the interview room, leaning forward over the table with his forehead resting against the cold surface.

"Maybe he thinks he's doing Susie a favour, by protecting her brother from more prison time," PJ suggested with a shrug. "Either way, we're his last hope."

PJ opened the door, causing Alex to physically jump off his seat in fright as the two detectives entered. He relaxed slightly at the sight of Amy and PJ, slumping back into his chair as Amy closed the door behind her. She leant back against it, hoping that it might deter any of her colleagues from trying to enter. PJ took a seat across from Alex, leaning forward and lowering his voice so that Amy could barely hear him. "You didn't kill Falcon-Price."

Alex shrugged almost carelessly as he let his head hang to one side and regarded PJ with a cold stare. "Two weeks ago, you thought I was an accessory to not one but two attacks against my own colleagues," he reminded him in an emotionless tone. "Isn't murder just a logical step from there?"

"We know you didn't kill Falcon-Price," PJ told him, his voice rising in volume by several decibels as he spoke. "Amy and I have worked it out, we know that there's more to this than you're saying. I'm been in this job for over twenty years, Alex. I consider myself to be a pretty good judge of character by now. I've known you for over three years and you're not a murderer."

Alex turned his gaze to Amy, staring at her hard for a long moment, as if to determine where her thoughts lied in the situation. One look in her eyes told him that she was agreeing with PJ. "Haven't you two been speaking to Senior Detective Henderson and Inspector Morris?" he asked them, still trying to keep his emotions out of his voice. "I've been obsessed with the memory of Susie Raynor and when Falcon-Price returned to Mt. Thomas, I sought revenge by killing him with a fluoro-coloured pub lamp."

"And if you want to spend the next twelve years or more sitting in a prison cell, you'll let those two tell a judge and jury that same story," Amy pointed out, her expression softening. "We've worked it out. We know about Lochie Raynor and where he fits into all of this."

Alex's expression seemed to become suddenly much more alarmed at the mention of Lochie Raynor's name. He turned his gaze to PJ, staring at him through wide eyes that betrayed his true emotion. It took him a long moment before he was able to compose himself enough to speak without giving everything away. "Lochie Raynor has nothing to do with this, I haven't even seen him since he took the emergency department of the hospital hostage…"

"That's not a police uniform with blood on it and there's another set of prints on the lamp," PJ explained, not giving Alex a chance to finish. "Mate, I get it. I really do. You loved Susie Raynor with all your heart. You loved her so much that you would live without her so she could be with the man who made her happy, so she could be with your best mate. When Jonesy turned on Susie, you were willing to sacrifice a powerful and life-long friendship to be there for Suse. And I know you wish that Susie wasn't shot, that Amy and I were dead instead. Trust me, I get it!"

"No, you don't," Alex snapped, his voice almost bitter at the thought of anyone knowing what was going on inside his head.

"Yes, I do!" PJ insisted, his eyes welling with tears. "You're not the first man to have loved and lost and you're certainly not going to be the last! You're staring at the one person who understands what you're going through right now! You're staring at the only two people left in this entire station that still believe that you didn't kill Falcon-Price in cold blood! You're staring at the only two people who can help you now!"

Alex paused, tears welling in his eyes at PJ's words. During his shouting, PJ had risen to his feet, bracing his weight against the table while Amy continued to stare on with small tears pricking their way into her eyes from where she remained leaning back against the interview room door. She could feel PJ's pain radiating off him and running through her own body, as though it were her pain as well. Her heart almost physically ached at what she knew PJ had gone through years before. She could tell that neither Alex nor PJ was willing to say anything for fear of completely losing it. "Do you think Susie would want this, Alex?" she asked, her voice sounding almost foreign in her throat. The emotional pain of PJ's that was running through her body seemed to form an uncomfortable lump in her throat that made her feel as though she were about to cry. "Her best friend and her brother, both caught up in this and lying to her friends? Do you think she'd want you to go to prison for years for a crime you didn't commit? I overheard her talking to Lochie after he shot Sophie Ash at the hospital, she wouldn't have covered for him. You can't save him, Alex. You're already looking at charges, maybe even a prison sentence. You can't save him. Susie wouldn't want you to."

PJ nodded at Amy's words, his heart giving a pang in his chest at the sight of silent tears finding their way down Alex's cheeks. "And neither would Kari," he continued, causing Alex to meet his gaze in surprise. "I know you loved her and she loved you back. You were the first man she had ever truly loved and she hated you for this attitude towards Susie. She wouldn't want you to throw away the rest of your life to save a man who's going down anyway. Forget the job, Alex. The job's gone. But do you really want to give up the rest of your life? Alex…if there's anything else you want to say, tell us now. I'd say you've only got about ten minutes before Mark caves in and stops defending you to Garth and Piper. Once he caves…you're gone, mate."

Alex drew in a deep and shaky breath as the tears continued to slide down his cheeks. He turned his frightened and uncertain gaze from PJ to Amy and back again, before he finally nodded. He couldn't remember having ever felt this frightened before in his entire life. He'd been through a lot in his time, but this had to take the cake. He'd finally made the royal screw-up that couldn't be fixed. He'd finally dug himself into the hole that no one could get him out of. There was no Jonesy to defend him, no Susie to reluctantly bail him out of trouble, no Tom to kick him up the arse until he had sorted the problem out and even Amy and PJ couldn't do a thing. He was going to prison. He was going to be put away, no matter what he did. Amy was right, he couldn't save Lochie Raynor and Susie wouldn't want him to, anyway. And PJ was right too, Kari wouldn't want to see him spending the next decade or more in prison because his obsession with Susie had consumed him whole.

He finally found it within him to speak, his voice breaking into sobs as he did so. "I've got an alibi."

* * *

PJ lowered the phone from his ear as he thanked the person on the other end, his whole body almost trembling with incredulity and a kind of relief at what he had just been told. Amy stared at him from where she was perched on the corner of his desk, her eyes wide and expectant as she bit her bottom lip distractedly.

"Alex Kirby was talking to Evan Jones in his CI office in his Melbourne police station from ten minutes after he left the station until well after Falcon-Price had been killed," PJ explained, sitting forward and looking up to Amy with wide eyes, not quite sure of what to say.

Amy nodded thoughtfully, her expression almost blank. "There's no chance that Jonesy is just covering for him, is there?"

He shook his head, letting a heavy sigh escape his lips. "Absolutely none. Alex's alibi has also been backed up by Tess Gallagher and half of the uniformed members of the police station who were trying to talk to Jonesy while he was busy talking to Alex. Jonesy overheard birds and cars in the background. He reckons that Alex was calling him from the National Park; he said that the signal was playing up a bit too. And the phone company can always verify it, if Garth and Piper want to argue."

"Alex's admitted to harbouring Lochie Raynor at his flat," Amy mused as her voice came close to tears, "he's admitted to hiding the weapon and lying to us by making a false confession. He's going to be charged with accessory after the fact, hinder police investigation and any number of disciplinary charges. He's going to spend time in prison for this."

PJ nodded, rising to his feet and wrapping his arms around Amy. He rubbed her back soothingly as he rested his chin on top her head, slowly letting his hands run up her back until he could run her fingers through her velvet curtain of soft brown hair. He was suddenly taken away from the chemistry between them by the sound of the door to Mark's office closing and the three officers within in stepping out into the muster room, heading silently for the interview room. By the expression on Mark's face, PJ and Amy could instantly tell that he had caved in and admitted defeat. "Shit," PJ cursed as his breath began to come in shaky, shallow gasps. "They're about to charge him with premeditated murder."

Amy suddenly jumped up from the desk and emerged out into the muster room just as the trio made it to the corridor. "Garth!" she called after them, causing them to spin to face her, their eyes narrowed in confusion. Garth stepped forward, folding his arms across his chest as he regarded her with a bizarre mixture of love and contempt. "PJ and I have finished doing your job for you. Before you go and charge Alex Kirby with premeditated murder, I think you might like to know who the real killer is…"

* * *

Alex stood at the charge counter, a little stunned at how different the station looked from the other side of the law. They'd brought Lochie Raynor in and he'd be following him down to Melbourne once Piper and Garth had finished with him. He'd been charged with enough to see him do time inside, perhaps enough to see the end of him. A copper on the inside with the criminals he had once helped put away…it was never a good combination. A recipe for disaster, as past experience had told him. As he signed the charge book with a shaking hand, he felt a sudden cold feeling rush through his body. A voice seemed to speak to him in his head, drowning out the voices of the Homicide detectives behind him as they gently tried to steer him away towards the car park. He knew it was Susie, or at least, what his mind was telling him was Susie. He knew she was disappointed in him and he didn't blame her in the least. He'd ruined his life, all in the name of her.

A small group of police officers suddenly appeared in the corridor leading back through to the rest of the station, Amy and PJ are the fore. He hated the expressions that they fixed him with, ones of pity and disappointment and even shame. He'd let them down. All of them. His family, his colleagues, his friends, Jonesy, Kari and even Susie.

Just before he let the Homicide detectives push him out the door, he fixed them with a final weak attempt at a smile. "I'm sorry," he told them softly before he disappeared from sight, the door closing softly behind him.

_I can't believe what is in front of me_

_The water's rising up to my knees_

_And I can't figure out how the hell I wound up here

* * *

_

Amy remained in the corridor of the police station, long after her colleagues had returned to the muster room to wait out the remainder of Lochie Raynor's interview. She imagined that, once Homicide had whisked Lochie down to Melbourne to join Alex, Piper would give them a lecture about that day's less than pleasant incident, followed by an awkward confrontation with Garth and then an attempt at some positive thinking by Mark. She closed her eyes as she leant back against the wall, not even opening them when the interview room door opened and Lochie was steered out through the same door that Alex had left through. She could hear Piper heading for the muster room and entering Mark's office and she could hear Garth Henderson approaching her, his hands stuffed into his pockets and his head lowered. "Do you want me to say it?"

"Say what, Garth?" she asked him tiredly, her tone weak and lacking conviction. "Don't bother, I don't have the energy to argue right now."

He nodded, reaching out to take her hand in his and sending Amy's eyes flying open in shock. "You were right," he told her, rubbing the back of her hand with his thumb in the way he used to on those moonlit nights at his place years ago. "I should have listened to you. I nearly charged a man with murder who didn't kill anyone." He paused, staring at Amy hard for a long moment. "I still blame you for what happened in Homicide, you know."

Amy's mouth dropped open as her whole body began to tremble. The memories of Homicide, combined with the stress of that day, were all too much for her. "Blame me?"

"We all knew better than to get involved. Then you came along and disrupted the entire thing. We all paid the price for it, Amy, and I don't think you truly appreciate how much of a price some of us paid."

Amy looked to him, tears shining in her emerald eyes as she stood up as straight as she could, trying not to let herself be intimidated by Garth. She shook her head, silent sobs almost overwhelming her. "I did pay the price for it, Garth. I paid it then and I'm still paying it. My name is mud. Every copper outside of this little Mt. Thomas universe knows what I did and they've turned my name into mud. Sometimes, you don't know me at all."

She pushed past him, heading back to the CI office and leaving Garth alone in the corridor, staring after her with regrets running through his mind.

* * *

PJ looked up from his desk as Amy entered, desperately trying to not break down into sobs in front of him. He rose to his feet, reaching out to her and pulling her into his arms. He held her against his chest for what felt like forever, letting her slowly try to compose herself as she listened to sound of his heart beating steadily in his chest. She finally looked up to him, tears still glistening in her eyes.

"It's not fair," she whispered, probing deep within PJ's mature and endlessly wise blue eyes for the answers she couldn't find within herself. "In all this mess of broken lives and heartache, of corrupt coppers and innocent lives lost…the only people who are going to go to prison for it are Alex Kirby and Lochie Raynor. It's just not bloody fair, PJ!"

He nodded, rubbing her back soothingly as he kissed the top of her head tenderly. "I know," he told her softly, staring at the wall opposite as he continued to soothe Amy in his arms. Soothing Amy always seemed to have a positive effect on him, as if by somehow making Amy feel better, he could make himself feel better. He tightened his grip on Amy as small tears sprung to his eyes. No matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't fall to pieces. Not over this. Not over the entire situation that had left two of his good friends dead and one in prison, while the men responsible would never truly understand what they'd done.

He couldn't give Russell Falcon-Price the satisfaction of him falling apart.

_I don't want to fall to pieces_


	71. Ep 15: Right To Mourn Pt1

**Episode 15: "Right To Mourn"**

**Summary: **_The Heelers are left stunned by the return of two old colleagues to replace Kari and Alex in their police team. Amy is left shocked when an old school friend is involved in a hit and run accident. PJ is forced to battle down his own insecurities when he decides to take the next step with Amy._

**Part 1**

Lyrics in this part come from _"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" _by U2 and _"Where Are They Now" _by Mr. Big.

The cool country air whipped at her face, turning her skin numb as it filled her lungs and sent a chill of remembrance and comfort through her body. She had missed the country while she had been off, travelling and searching for answers that she still hadn't found. There was a kind of connection with the place, something that her heart and mind had kept coming back to even when she had been thousands of kilometres and several continents away. Deep inside her heart, she could feel a kind of comfort grow; a kind of peace at knowing that she was back where her soul could call home.

She reached up to brush at the dark strands of hair that were flying around almost uncontrollably in her line of sight. As she combed it back behind an ear with her fingers, she couldn't hide a contented smile. After all she'd seen, after all she'd done, after all the mistakes she'd made, she felt instantly at ease back in the town that she had grown up in.

But there was still a niggling sense of incompleteness. The unanswered questions plagued her mind as she knelt down at the stone grave, watching as the two-year-old child in her arms reached out to the stone, running her tiny fingers across the engraved name.

Dash McKinley sighed as she rose to her feet, sweeping her young daughter back up into her arms and holding her close, planting a gentle kiss on her cheek. She'd travelled the world looking for the reason that a beautiful and kind woman could be cruelly snatched before her time, and she still hadn't found them.

_I have spoke with the tongue of angels_

_I have held the hand of a devil_

_It was warm in the night_

_I was cold as a stone_

_But I still haven't found what I'm looking for_

She turned on her heel, walking briskly across the frost-covered cemetery grass of the plot where many of her family were buried and back towards her old car, trying not to let the incompleteness consume her whole. It was time to go to work.

* * *

"_Marry me."_

PJ stared hard at the small velvet box in his hands, unable to tear his watery blue eyes away from the simple silver ring sitting within it. His hands shook ever so slightly as his grip tightened, his mind still throwing him back to places he didn't want to go. It had all seemed so easy when he had bought the ring, so logical, so simple. It was the next step. But now he had the ring in his hands, everything seemed so much more complicated.

He could still hear his voice echoing around in his brain, softly asking the young blonde who sat beside him in memory to be his wife. He could still clearly see her nod; still clearly hear her quiet reply. It made his heart beat faster in his chest, almost aching with a pain he'd swore never to let control his life again. He couldn't, not if he wanted a hope of making what he had with Amy work.

"I'm doing the right thing, aren't I?" he whispered to himself, almost half-hoping that the person he desperately needed to see above all else would magically appear before him. "I'm not about to turn her into another Jo, am I? Mags?"

Not to his surprise, the CI office remained as still and empty as it had for the last half-hour that Amy had been gone out on a job with Kelly. There was no sign of an answer from the one person he needed an answer from. There'd never be an answer, he supposed, regret creeping into his mind. Maggie Doyle was gone and she'd never be able to give him the affirmation he needed that he was doing the right thing. Wherever she was, she wasn't coming back to tell him what he needed to hear.

_I loved, I lost_

_Where are they now?

* * *

_

Amy climbed out of the CI car, her eyes brimming with small tears of regret and sadness as she surveyed the scene before her. Sticky-beaks had gathered around the lonely Mt. Thomas street, forming a tight human wall that Amy had to physically force her way through.

After several seconds, she was finally able to shove Tony Timms and his flashing camera aside to reveal a young woman, no older than herself, lying unconscious on the ground, bleeding heavily from a large gash on the side of her head and various other scratches on her body. Her casual denim jeans and blue woollen jumper had been torn during the ordeal and her straight silky blonde hair had become knotted and matted with dried crimson blood.

The woman's still and almost lifeless face shocked Amy as a tinge of remembrance made its way through her suddenly very cold body. A kind of numb aching pain welled within her heart, sending several of her brimming tears sliding down her pale, wind-bitten cheeks. A sickening sensation welled within her stomach, nearly making her want to spill out the contents of that day's breakfast, while a tight lump at the bottom of her throat made her almost feel like she was choking.

She eventually managed to tear her gaze away from the woman's body and pushed her way back through the crowds, knocking Tony Timm's camera to the ground as she did so. She bother looking back as she heard it smash on the tar, or his cries of brutality. She didn't stop until she reached the CI car, where she braced herself against the car's cabin, slowly letting her forehead come to rest on the cold silver metal.

Her mind was a terrible whirl of thoughts that she couldn't unjumble into some kind of sense. All she could think about was that poor woman lying still on the road and everything she had ever done for her, everything that Amy had never repaid her for.

She had become so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she didn't notice the large man approaching her from behind, his hands thrust firmly into his pockets and his eyes downtrodden and almost blank beneath his mop of dark hair.

"She was hit by a car; I was out for a walk when it happened. Hit and run, the bastard didn't bother pulling over even when he'd realised he'd hit her. The ambos only just beat you here; they reckon she's got spinal damage and probably a severe brain injury and internal haemorrhaging. It's a bloody waste."

Amy rose her head sharply, spinning around to face the source of the voice. Even before she saw his face, she recognised the voice from the few times that they'd met, and there had been a few. And a lot of him putting her down, too. In less than half a second, she found herself face to face with Nick Schultz, staring hard at everything from his messy dark hair to his old stripy jumper and too-tight jeans, all topped off with a pair of dirty white joggers that looked as though they may fall to pieces at any second.

She suddenly realised how long she had been staring at his feet, when he shuffled his feet, forcing a weak chuckle as he looked down to stare at them himself. "Yeah," he told her. "Zoe keeps telling me to chuck them out and buy a new pair, but I keep telling her that if we were meant to buy new shoes, then they wouldn't be so damn uncomfortable!"

Amy found herself unable to even force a laugh at Nick's attempt at humour, instead simply shaking her head as she stared back through the crowd, focussing on what little of the woman she could see. She began biting her lip as the tears became hotter and more uncontrollable in her eyes. "Her name's Stephanie Anderson, or at least, that's what it used to be…"

Nick narrowed his eyes as he stared at Amy hard, yet he was unable to force her to look him in the eye. "You know her?"

She thought for a long moment over Nick's question, before simply shrugging. "I knew her," she replied, a sense of helplessness creeping into her voice. "A long time ago." Desperate to clear the uncomfortable sensations that were taking control of her body, she wrapped her arms around herself and her large mustard coat and forced a certain fake cheeriness into her voice. "So, does PJ know you're in town?"

Nick suddenly seemed ill at ease at Amy's question, nervously brushing at his hair with a slightly shaking hand. "Ah, nah…he doesn't…not yet, anyway…" As he spoke, Nick's voice became somewhat quieter until it was little more than a slight grumble. Amy found her eyes narrowing in slight distraction at Nick's words.

"How long are you staying?" she asked, nervously playing with a strand of dark hair. He feigned a laugh before moving to lean back against the car beside her.

"I'm, ah…well, I'm posted here. Sergeant. Zoe's got a job here, too. Hospital." Nick replied, barely able to string anything longer than a few syllables together. He brushed his dark hair back from his face as he turned back to face the scene of the accident, his eyes suddenly becoming dark as old memories and pain resurfaced, hitting him heavily. "What a bloody waste."

* * *

PJ was barely able to stash the ring and its small velvet box in the top drawer of his desk before Amy entered the CI office, her face pale and her eyes wide. Every step she took seemed to be shaky and numb, as though she wasn't feeling or seeing anything. She slowly slipped down into her chair, flopping forward and knocking several piles of paperwork to the floor. PJ's concern and shock at Amy's demeanour was suddenly replaced by a sense of disbelief as Nick Schultz entered the office behind her. "Nick?" he asked almost breathlessly. "Nick bloody Schultz…what the hell are you doing here?"

Nick forced a chuckle as he greeted PJ with an almost rip-cracking blokey hug and a firm handshake. "Well mate, the more things change, the more they stay the same…I'm back in uniform, so those constables of yours had better be on their toes because I've got a whip and I'm not afraid to crack it."

PJ found himself simply shaking his head in confusion at Nick's words, a broad grin spreading across his face. "You are insane, Nick Schultz, you know that?"

Amy watched the exchange between the two men with a blank expression on her face, the tears in her eyes barely held at bay by the sheer determination to not go to pieces. PJ glanced at her briefly, his heart giving an awful pang at his chest at her obvious distress. Nick followed PJ's gaze to Amy and nodded in understanding. "Well," he said, drawing himself up to his full and quite considerable height, "I'd better be getting home before Zoe gets to the point of wanting to strangle me for leaving her alone to deal with the twins…I'll be seeing the two of you again later."

They both watched as Nick disappeared out through the back entrance, humming a little to himself as he left. PJ couldn't restrain a weak chuckle at the return of his old mate, before immediately sobering up and turning back to face Amy. He perched himself on the corner of her desk, reaching out to envelop her hand within his. He held it up to his lips, pressing them against her soft, pale skin. "The hit and run that was called in…" he probed, his eyes narrowing and his expression softening as he delved deep within her shining emerald eyes.

She tried as hard as she could not to crack and meet PJ's eyes, knowing full well that she was likely to snap if she did. Realising that this would be near impossible, she instead rose to her feet, her heart giving a heavy pang in her chest as she pulled her hand away from PJ's. "I've got to get in touch with the victim's family," she told him curtly, biting her bottom lip not out of distraction, but out of desperation not to break down. "There might be a husband too."

She pushed past PJ deliberately as she headed out into the muster room and commandeered the computer at the Sergeant's desk. She refused to look up from the monitor screen as she typed, noting something down on the first piece of scrap paper that she could find. He followed her to the doorway, where he leant against it and regarded her with a preoccupied expression. Amy obviously knew the woman who had been involved in that hit and run she had attended, even if she refused to say. However, he soon found his mind drifting away from his body and back to the small velvet box sitting in his desk drawer and the two little words that he just couldn't bring himself to say, somehow. Not while Maggie Doyle's reply was still echoing around in his head, anyway.

* * *

Amy drew away from the old dark wooden front door, nervously busying herself by brushing hair back from her face as she waited for a reply. From deep within the old weatherboard house surrounded by half-empty paint cans and large pieces of paint-stained fabric, she could hear a male's cheery reply. It was a nice little Mt. Thomas street – where all the houses had a homely kind of feel to them, where you wouldn't be afraid to leave your door unlocked at night. In fact, it was such a nice street that Amy couldn't even remember it properly. There couldn't have been much crime there.

The door finally swung open to reveal a man no older than Amy standing in the door, large patches of dark indigo paint staining his white overalls and even specks over his face, hands and mousy brown hair. His bright and bubbly hazel eyes seemed to regard the suited and clearly distressed woman before him for a long moment, before they suddenly widened with recognition. A pearly white grin spread across his face as he opened the screen door wide for her. "Amy…Amy Fox!" he cried with surprise, looking her up and down as if he couldn't quite believe that she was standing there. "I haven't seen you in…wow, seventeen years…" He shook his head, unable to believe that that much time had indeed past. "Stephanie will be over the moon to see you! She's just out grabbing some breakfast at the moment, we haven't exactly gotten to the supermarket lately..." He suddenly stopped talking, turning to face her as he headed down the hallway. "I'm being rude, aren't I? Come in, come in, I'll make you a coffee…"

She began shaking her head, the tears threatening to overwhelm herself as old memories hit her hard. "I'm not here for a casual visit, Lance."

Lance paused, his smile fading at the seriousness in Amy's eyes. He'd always known Amy to be quiet and softly-spoken and never the joking type, but never this serious or grave. There was just something about her eyes… "Something's wrong?" he asked her, slowly heading back down the hallway towards her. "Why are you here?"

Amy opened her mouth to speak, but the words got lost inside her throat. She instead pulled her badge out from her pocket, holding it out to Lance. He slowly reached out to it, running his thumb along it.

"You joined the police force," he observed quietly. "Stephy will be glad to hear this. She was fearing the worst when you disappeared like that…"

"I'm here on police business, Lance," she interrupted, trying to force even a hint of professionalism into her voice. The last trace of brightness vanished from his face as he stared hard at Amy. "I'm sorry, Lance, but…Stephanie's…she…she's been involved in a hit and run. She…she…she might not make it."

Amy had done death notices before. Far too many, in fact, for her to be entirely comfortable with, and she knew that there would be many more to come before her career came to an end. However, she knew that she'd never get used to the response of the person she was talking to, the grief and shock and anger that she could never put into words. Lance Watson was no different. He crossed the short distance between them in seconds and grabbed the tops of her arms and began to shake her as great sobs escaped his body.

"You're lying!" he shouted, his voice wobbling and breaking as his grip on Amy weakened and he slowly sank to the floor. "Not my Stephy…no, no…not my Stephy…"

She crouched down beside him, reaching out to wrap her arms around him and rest her head on his shoulder. She'd known Lance Watson for years and yet, she'd never seen him go to pieces. He loved Stephanie so deeply and completely that it physically pained her. It made her remember everything that she herself was going to lose if Stephanie didn't make it.


	72. Ep 15: Right To Mourn Pt2

**Part 2**

Amy stood at the Watson's sink, slowly and methodically stirring the sugar into the tea she was making for Lance. He was sitting over at the small circular dining table, his hands clasped together tightly and his forehead resting on them. His eyes were firmly shut and his lips moved only slightly in the softest of murmurs, perhaps a silent prayer for the woman he loved.

She finally drew herself back to earth as she turned back to Lance, offering him the bright violet mug. He took it without saying a word, not drinking it but instead letting his shaking fingertips close around the mug's smooth surface. She took up her own coffee, inviting herself to join him in the seat opposite.

They sat there in stunned silence for a long time, neither quite sure of what to say to the other. The spirit of a bright young teenage girl with her heart on her sleeve and optimism Amy would have killed for seemed to haunt the little Mt. Thomas kitchen. Finally, Lance spoke. "What happened?"

Amy opened her mouth to speak, but she found that the words didn't come. She tried to speak for a second and then a third time before finally she was able to force some kind of sound to leave her lips. "She was hit by a car on her way to the shops," she paused, not quite able to believe that the voice echoing around the kitchen was her own. It didn't sound like her voice. "An off-duty police officer was nearby, he saw it happen. The ambos…they think that she's got a broken spine, internal haemorrhaging and a…a…severe brain injury." She had to stop at the words 'severe brain injury'. She found herself saying them with a kind of disgust and anger, as though she was trying to blame someone for what had happened. It only just seemed to hit her just how bad this really was. Would Stephanie Anderson, the free-spirited teenager who could charm anyone with just a hint of a smile, ever be the same again? Would she even recognise the man she loved or her, the girl that she had once called friend?

"Brain injury?" Lance asked, the words seeming even bitterer coming from him than they had from Amy. "She's not going to be a vegetable for the rest of her life, is she? Please, Amy, for heaven's sake! I need to know!"

She found herself shaking her head, her whole body feeling as though it were simply caving in under the pressure. "I don't know!" she snapped in reply to Lance's desperate pleas. "I don't bloody know! I'm not a doctor! I can't fix this!"

Lance seemed to nod in acknowledgement of Amy's words, his body still trembling as he sat back in his chair, the tea Amy had made for him long forgotten. "But you are a detective," he whispered, staring almost vacantly ahead. "You can find who did this. Find out why. Make them pay."

Amy nodded in response without even a second thought. She finally dared to rise to shaky feet, reaching out to help Lance up from his chair. He let his gaze meet hers, his usually bright and bubbly hazel eyes now dark and full of shining disbelief. She reached out to rub his shoulder in a weak display of sympathy. "I'll give you a lift over to the hospital," she told him gently, her eyes narrowing in concern. "Then I promise, I'll find who did this to Stephy. I promise."

* * *

Sophie slipped out of the Resus cubicle, pulling the curtain shut tightly behind her as she slumped back against the nearest wall. She passed a hand across her weary eyes, finding not for the first time that small tears had formed there. It was days like these that made her grateful that they were getting a second doctor in there – this was all too much for one woman to try to handle on their own.

A door at the end of a nearby corridor opened with a soft creak that caught her attention instantly. She turned to stare down it intently at the two figures approaching her, one a female that was no doubt Amy Fox and a young man who was most probably the husband of the young woman on the other side of the curtain behind her. She slowly lifted herself back off the wall and met them half-way. "You must be the husband," she said to Lance, her tone soft and soothing. "We've gotten her stabilised for the moment, you'll be able to see her in a minute." She turned to head back to the Resus cubicle, only to change her mind. She motioned back to Amy, indicating an empty room off the corridor. "Can we have a word, Amy?"

Amy nodded and followed Sophie inside, watching with shaky breath as the doctor closed the door. An uneasy silence hung over them for a long moment, before eventually Amy spoke. "She's not going to pull through this, is she?"

Sophie thought through Amy's question for a long moment, before eventually shaking her head in reply. "No, she's not. It's not a matter of if she'll crash, but when. We've got her on life support for the moment." She sighed heavily, distractedly playing with a strand of silky blonde hair. "It could be for the best, anyway. Even if she did recover, she'd never be the same again."

"Brain damage," Amy whispered, remembering Nick's words at the accident site. She looked away at Sophie's slow and cautious nod, trying to brush away a forlorn tear as discreetly as possible. "Look after Lance," she told her sharply as she headed to the door. "I'm heading back to the station to find the bastard."

Sophie reached out for Amy, only to change her mind and let the detective go. She could hear Amy's heels hitting the floor hard as she stormed up the corridor, no doubt venting her frustration on the hospital floor. It was something that Sophie knew she'd done herself a number of times.

* * *

Nick froze as he stared intently at his reflection in the old bedroom mirror, his large hands shaking ever so slightly as his grip tightened on the blue police shirt that was only half pulled over his broad shoulders. He couldn't stop involuntary tears from pricking up painfully in his strangely soft green eyes. Despite his tough and quite intimidating appearance, his eyes told the story of a true softy, a warm and almost fragile heart beneath the bully façade he liked to hide behind.

He didn't like attending traffic accidents. Really, it was a wonder he had lasted so long in Traffic. He knew that the victims were always someone's daughter, someone's son, someone's lover, someone's parent, someone's friend. As he stood transfixed before the mirror, he found himself wandering back to an old memory and an old pain that he had long banished to the darkest depths of his mind. His wife and his little girl, both lying bloodied and bruised in their car seats while the drunken Melbourne businessman in the sleek black car stumbled out, crying insults about women drivers while blood dribbled from a small gash just above his right eye. Just as he could have sworn that the tears were filling his eyes anew, the bedroom door creaked open and Zoe Hamilton peered through the gap, her mop of dark curls and ringlets pulled back off her face into a loose ponytail.

Her brow furrowed in concern as she closed the door slightly behind her and approached her husband, wrapped her arms around his neck and letting her chin rest in the crook of his shoulder. Nick let the slightest of smiles spread across his face as he focused on his wife's face reflected in the mirror, while he reached back with his hand to place it on her shoulder. He soon found himself spinning to face her, caressing her cheek with the back of his hand. "Sorry," he told her, in a voice that was precious more than a grumble. "Just thinking about that hit and run. Bloody waste."

Zoe nodded, wrapping her arms around Nick's neck and drawing him in for a long kiss. The simple from his wife was enough to banish the memories from Nick's mind and bring him crashing back to reality. He soon found himself leaning over Zoe, both of them trying to restrain giggles as they wrestled with each other's clothing, all thoughts of work and uniforms and hit and runs gone, replaced by nothing more than their love for one another.

Suddenly, the door was thrown open and a young boy's cry of disbelief could be heard. "Mummy!"

Nick quickly climbed off Zoe and disappeared into a far corner, busying himself by searching for the belt that Zoe had thrown away just moments before. Zoe cast him an almost dirty look before beginning to desperately button up her top, her cheeks a bright shade of red. "What's wrong, Travis?"

The seven year old tore his gaze away from his mother and focused it squarely on his father, the eyes that he had inherited from Zoe wide and shining from underneath the mop of hair he had inherited from Nick. He finally looked back to Zoe, finding that she had tidied herself up now. "Trevor stole my pencil case! He said he didn't, but I know he did and he won't give it back to me, so I said that I'd go and get Mum and Dad, but he still wouldn't give it back and…"

Zoe reached out, pulling her little boy close and kissing on his forehead beneath his messy fringe. "I'll come and deal with it then, okay?"

At his mother's words, Travis latched onto her hand, dragging her out of the bedroom. Just before she disappeared into the hallway, she let her eyes meet Nick's and they shared a weak laugh.

"Twins," Nick mumbled to himself with a chuckle. "We must have been mad…"

* * *

Dash stood before the mirror of her small apartment's largest bedroom, staring hard at her reflection. The blue police uniform that clung to her slender frame felt oddly foreign, yet strangely familiar at the same time. It almost felt as though she was back in some year long gone by and any moment now, Maggie Doyle would burst through the door to hurry her up, reminding her of how much Nick tormented her when she was late. With a sharp jolt, she reminded herself harshly that Maggie Doyle wasn't going to be barging in to remind her of the time. Not anymore. Involuntary tears found their way to her deep brown eyes at the thought of this.

She told herself inwardly to pull herself together and she focused hard on her reflection again. She stared for a long moment at her dark brown hair, now grown so that it fell past her shoulders with shorter strands that hung loose around her face in its low ponytail. She stared hard at the badge on her shirt, the one that gave her a certain authority and power that she had sorely missed. And finally, she found her gaze falling down to the reflection of a small child standing just behind her, where she had been tugging on Dash's dark police pants for several minutes. "Mummy," she whispered as Dash turned to her, her eyes wide with disbelief of how long she had ignored her daughter for. The girl passed a small hand back through her tiny pigtails, her other hand closed tightly around the arm of a raggedly old teddy bear. "You a good policeman."

Dash found the brightest of smiles spreading across her lips as her eyes attained a kind of shimmering joy and pride and love that could only be possessed by a mother looking at her beloved child. She drew the little girl up into her arms, a little surprised at how big she'd grown in such a short space of time. Two years already…

She brushed a loose strand of the girl's fine dark hair, causing a tiny grin of pleasure to appear upon her daughter's lips. Dash felt her spirits lifting instantly at the sight. "It's good you think so, Phoebe," she told her with a laugh creeping into her voice.

Just before she left the bedroom, she found herself stealing one last furtive glance to the mirror. She couldn't help but notice how much her reflection had changed, how different her expression was when Phoebe Elizabeth McKinley was sitting in her arms. She couldn't help but think that her newest role suited her perfectly – the role of the mother.

* * *

Amy sat in the CI office, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor as she waited for Nick to arrive. The waiting was really beginning to get to her – as far as she could tell, the only witness to the hit and run was Nick Schultz and he was off playing happy families at the moment while whoever had caused the hit and run was getting away.

PJ had long since left the CI office, saying that he felt like something to eat in the mess room. She didn't really know what he was getting up to in there, but it somehow was the last thing on her mind. She couldn't tear her focus off Stephanie Anderson – or Watson, as she was now – and everything that she'd done for her. Yet, thinking of Stephanie brought memories of Lance into the forefront of her mind, and how different he'd been today from what she remembered. She didn't think Lance had ever really liked her. He'd always seemed to have seen through her, as if he'd seen that she was hiding something that could have the potential to completely consume her. Or maybe he'd just wanted Stephanie to himself, Amy supposed she didn't really know.

Finally, the sound of off-tune humming could be heard coming from the back entrance of the largely deserted police station and heading for the CI office. Amy didn't have to ask herself who the hummer was – she knew only one person on her side of the law with footsteps that heavy, and that person was Nick Schultz.

Nick emerged into the CI office, a large blue back-pack hanging by one strap over his right shoulder and his hair looking as though a brush hadn't touched it in weeks or perhaps even months. His bright and almost reflective smile vanished at the sight of Amy staring at him expectantly, her eyes critical of every aspect of his appearance. For the first time since they'd met, Amy had some authority over him and that made Nick feel slightly uncomfortable.

He quickly tried to lighten the mood with what was perhaps a slightly ill-thought-out comment. "I forgot to say earlier, you look much better now than when I last saw you."

Amy's brow furrowed in confusion over Nick's comment, before finally remembering the last time that she and Nick had crossed paths prior to that day. "Oh, yes," she replied, nervously brushing at her hair, as though it might somehow make the faint white scar on the side of her neck become less noticeable, even though it was barely visible. "The hospital, Christmas, right…" She trailed off, busying herself with the piles of paper on her desk until she eventually found a notebook. She opened it and grabbed her blue biro, turning to stare up at Nick with intense curiosity. "I need to get some information off you about this morning…"

He paused, instantly becoming ill at ease as his mind drifted off to that morning's accident and involuntarily even further back to the two girls he loved lying dead in their car seats… "What do you need to know?" he asked, grabbing PJ's chair and dragging it over to the side of Amy's desk as he tried desperately to stop his mind from wandering.

"Usual," Amy replied, also trying to not let her mind wander to places that she couldn't deal with. "Make of the car, licence plate, description of the driver…"

"Right," Nick told her with a nod as he leant back in PJ's chair, folding his arms across his dark police jacket. "Well, it was a little red charger…decrepit old thing…I didn't really get to see the driver, but I think it might have been a woman, probably a retiree. I think the licence plate started with TJ, but I can't be sure. I was too busy trying to see how badly she was hurt."

He stared at Amy hard as she noted all of his information down, her eyes narrowed as if it required the greatest amount of concentration she was capable of. He was grateful that she didn't look up at him, because he might have seen just how vulnerable Nick Schultz could be and that was certainly not something he was letting Amy Fox of all people find out, no way. Letting Amy Fox find out that Nick Schultz had a soft side would almost be as bad as if Tom Croydon had found out just how many times Nick had used his shifts to catch up on missed sleep and just how many times he had conned Dash McKinley or Maggie Doyle into covering up for him.

Finally, something that had been bothering him for almost the entire day left his lips before he could coordinate himself to stop it. "You know Stephanie Anderson or Watson or whatever her name is, don't you?"

"Knew her," Amy interjected without looking up. "I already told you, I knew her."

"Tell me how you knew her," Nick continued, finally causing Amy to look up in surprise, exposing tear-filled emerald eyes. "I want you to tell me how you knew her."


	73. Ep 15: Right To Mourn Pt3

**Part 3**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Walking Wounded" _by Everything But The Girl.

Amy stared hard at Nick, her eyes widening and her mouth dropping open as her mind ran numbly over what he had just said. His eyes probed within her own, as if desperately searching her soul for the answers he wanted. She finally folded her arms in front of her, sitting forward over her desk and turning to stare almost vacantly ahead at the strangely filthy station window behind PJ's chair. "She's the same age as me, a couple of months younger, actually. We went to school together for years, Lance Watson was in the year above, but he and Stephanie were just about inseparable. I guess that it was one of those…soul mate kind of relationships."

Nick thought through Amy's words, nodding slightly in all the right places. She didn't seem to take any notice of him – she was still staring vacantly off into space, her eyes narrowed as she wallowed through the old memories. "I was only eight years old and at a new school and…" She paused, quite suddenly remembering that Nick Schultz was sitting next to her and not really sure of how much of her past she wanted him to know. This was all bad enough. "…and it was a really hard time of my life. Some of the bigger kids were picking on me, you know, Amy Fox the bookworm. I was an easy target for them and not exactly the prettiest girl in the school. Anyway, Stephanie sort of…she sort of took me under her wing, if you know what I mean. She was my best friend…well, she was my only friend."

She glanced over to Nick briefly, and automatically wished she hadn't. His eyes were shimmering with the faintest of tears, which he seemed to dismiss as soon as he realised that she was looking at him. She bowed her head, strands of her dark hair falling around her face and the bags under her eyes becoming more obvious.

"When we got to high school…" Amy began, suddenly freezing and realising that she was about to say more than she should. It wasn't like talking to PJ or even Bill Lapscott, but there was something about Nick that made her instinctively want to trust him, even with the deepest secret that would haunt her for the rest of her life. She turned to look back at him again, her eyes wide and silent tears finding their way down her pale cheeks. Something about his eyes caught her attention, momentarily tearing her mind away from Stephanie Watson and the nightmare of that morning. Something about Nick reminded her of something she had once told PJ after one of their more gruelling cases a few years earlier. The walking wounded.

_Out amongst the walking wounded_

_Every face on every bus_

Nick didn't give her a chance to wonder any longer about him, as he quickly rose to his feet, spinning to find himself face to face with PJ Hasham as he stood in the doorway to the CI office, his eyes soft and his expression showing that he was startled to see Amy and Nick sharing a deep and meaningful when past contact between them had consisted of little more than police talk on Amy's part and teasing on Nick's part. "Patrick Joseph!" Nick exclaimed, half in an attempt of humour and half in surprise that his old mate had caught such a vulnerable moment. "You selfish, selfish man! Where's my sandwich?"

"Sorry, mate," PJ replied, his expression brightening at the familiar banter he had sorely missed. "I had the last pieces of bread. The only bread left is that wholemeal stuff of Mark's."

"Figures," Nick mumbled, glancing fleetingly over to where Amy was sitting at her desk, her eyes still misty. "I'll go run some checks on what I saw of the car, okay?" At Amy's distracted nod, Nick left the office, heading out to what was now his desk in the muster room.

PJ remained in the door, following Nick with his gaze before turning it back to Amy. His mind ran with a million confusing thoughts as their eyes met, their familiar and comforting connection forming between them. He closed the door softly behind him as he approached her, her eyes shining up at him with all the vulnerability of a small child. She quickly hid it as best she could, desperately brushing at her tears with the back of her hand. "It's nothing," she told him, pre-empting what she knew would have been a probing remark from PJ. "Just how much of a bloody waste it all is, you know."

She rose to her feet, grabbing the mustard coloured coat that he had given her for Christmas and tried to push past him to the door, but he let his fingers close gently around her wrist. He leant in so that their noses were just centimetres apart. "Don't be afraid to just let Nick take care of it. He's an old Traffic copper, he knows what he's doing in cases like this."

"I don't doubt his professional ability, PJ," she retorted, taking a quite defensive tone with her partner and lover. Her eyes glimmered with tears as she tried to withdraw from PJ's inquisitive stare. "I thought we agreed that you'd let me do my job."

His grip seemed to vanish instantly at her words, obviously having been reminded that he had once promised to let Amy look after herself and do her job. His eyes were still concerned and, despite the sense of distraction that seemed to radiate from him, he seemed to remain worried about the accident that morning and what it was doing to her. At PJ's suddenly downtrodden demeanour, Amy slipped past him, disappearing up the corridor to the mess room.

Now alone in the CI office, PJ found himself casting a longing glance to his desk, his eyes narrowing as they fell upon the drawer that contained something so small that could change his and Amy's lives so much. If only he could tell himself that he wasn't about to ruin another beautiful young woman's life.

* * *

Kelly sat outside the police station on the hood of the patrol car, her legs crossed underneath her and her eyes closed. A cool breeze played with several loose strands of her blonde hair, lifting them off her pale face and causing them to flutter lightly. If Mark, or even their new Sergeant Nick Schultz, were to walk out and catch her sitting on the patrol car in such a fashion, she knew that there'd be hell to pay, but it somehow didn't seem to matter. Nothing did, not really. Recent events had finally seemed to catch up with the officers and she for one didn't like the vulnerability.

She didn't know if she'd ever be able to get Roger or what he'd done to her out of her mind. Every time she tried to forget about her rape, she just felt more and more dirty and worthless. She didn't want to feel that way, but no matter how many times Joss Peroni or Amy Fox or Bill Lapscott told her that she was still beautiful and wonderful, she couldn't dismiss the nightmarish thoughts that were haunting her.

As she sat cross-legged on the patrol car, she became so enveloped in her own thoughts that she didn't hear the woman approach her until she eventually spoke. "I wouldn't let your boss catch you doing that."

Kelly's eyes snapped open and she jumped back instinctively, her boots hitting the gravel with a heavy thud. She found herself staring wide-eyed at a woman who was aged somewhere between herself and Amy, with long dark hair that was tied back into a high ponytail, with short strands that cradled her somewhat surprised face. It took Kelly a few seconds to process that this woman was wearing a police uniform, with a badge that declared her identity to be 'D.E. McKinley, Senior Constable'. "Sorry," Kelly apologised quickly, nervously brushing loose strands of blonde back from her eyes. "I'm just a little jumpy…who exactly are you meant to be?"

The woman pulled herself into a formal salute, only to immediately let it drop as a bright smile lit up her face. "Senior Constable Dash McKinley, reporting for duty!" she declared, her deep brown eyes sparkling with an enthusiasm that Kelly remembered well from her first day on the job. Or, in fact, any day on the job until that one night at the Imperial that had brought her life crashing down around her. "And you must be…" Dash trailed off as she studied Kelly's badge intently. "…Constable Kelly O'Rourke!"

Kelly glanced down to her badge, a tiny smile reaching her lips at the sight of it against her chest. Even if nothing else felt safe or comfortable anymore, than the feeling she got when she put on her uniform every morning certainly was. She had never really understood what people had meant when they said that policing could be a powerful anaesthetic, but she did now. She found herself meeting Dash's eyes for a long moment, not quite sure of what she was meant to be saying. Finally Dash solved Kelly's problem when she began to speak in an excited and enthusiastic voice.

"I've always loved the name Kelly," she explained, as she adjusted the large royal blue backpack that hung over one shoulder. "I was going to give my daughter that name, but in the end, I decided that she just looked so much like a Phoebe Elizabeth that Kelly ended up being forgotten. My little girl's two; I'll have to bring her in so you can meet her sometime." A huge grin spread across Dash's face as she spoke of her daughter, something that didn't escape Kelly's attention. Almost as quickly as Dash had changed the subject, she changed it again, turning her sparkling eyes towards the building behind Kelly. "That'd be the new station, I assume. It certainly looks different to the last one; I can't imagine Tom would have liked it very much. You'd better give me a tour of it…oh, and introduce me to the new crew! I guess all the old guys are gone by now…" Dash's expression suddenly became downtrodden, before she brightened herself up again and drew in a deep breath. "Well, Constable O'Rourke, you'd better show me inside."

Kelly nodded, her eyes wide at Dash's rather long rant. She ushered for the older woman to follow her as she made her way numbly through to the back entrance. The name Dash McKinley sounded familiar, she reflected as she made a mental note to quiz PJ about it a little later. Despite Dash's undeniable strangeness, she still couldn't help feel a little drawn to her. There was something about her that she recognised in herself, that brightness and passion that she had buried when her whole world had turned upside down. Dash was going to be an interesting addition to their team, there was no denying that.

* * *

Amy brought the CI car to a stop in a quiet Mt. Thomas street as she turned to stare out the window at the house beyond. It was a quaint little thing, with white weatherboards and gleaming white tiles on the roof. It was a gardener's paradise, with delicate flowering vines twisting their way along the walls, almost framing the windows, while flowers of every variety and colour she had ever imagined blossomed in the front yard. It was enough to steal her breath away and force every logical thought from her mind. Her eyes widened as they remained fixed on the sight before her. It looked like something out of a fairytale, or at least, one of her aunt's old Better Homes and Gardens magazines.

She finally snapped herself back to attention as she grabbed the blue folder sitting on the empty passenger seat and climbed out of the car, still barely able to tear her eyes away. As she crossed the road and invited herself through the front gate, the screen door opened and an elderly woman emerged from within.

She looked like a sweet old thing, with fine curls that had greyed to an almost white colour and wrinkled that seemed to line her face. Yet, beyond her older face, almost youthful blue eyes shone out at Amy as a gentle smile played on her lips. She was wearing a beautiful blue floral dress with a white cardigan pulled tightly around her torso. She folded her arms across her chest as she approached Amy, who couldn't restrain a kind smile. She hadn't said a word to this woman, yet she instinctively liked her. She gave Amy a warm, grandmother kind of feeling; one that Amy regretted never getting the opportunity to know herself.

"Oh, hello dearie," the woman explained, her smile broadening as she spoke. "I'm terribly sorry, but I just don't have the strength to deal with anyone trying to sell me anything today."

Amy felt her eyes narrow in confusion, before she finally gave a weak chuckle in reply to the suggestion that she was trying to sell something. "Oh, no, no, I'm not here to sell you anything," she told her, the warm aroma of the garden around her suddenly hitting her hard as she headed down the cemented path. "I'm Senior Detective Amy Fox from the Mt. Thomas Police. Are you Lucy Williamson?"

The woman nodded as her expression darkened somewhat, before she quickly hid it behind a bright smile. "That's me," she replied as she motioned back towards her house. "You look like death warmed up, love. Let me make you a cup of tea, my special recipe."

Amy went to refuse Lucy's offer – she didn't really have the time for this and she had never exactly been a tea person – but found that she simply couldn't. Something was drawing her to this kindly old woman, and it wasn't just the grandmother feeling. "Sure," she answered, clutching her folder tightly to her chest. "But I was just wondering if you could tell me something before you make us that tea."

Lucy turned back to face Amy, her eyes suddenly losing their bright sparkle. "Yes, dear?"

Amy quickly turned her gaze down to the folder in her arms as she opened it up, rummaging through it for the information she needed. "Would you happen to own a red charger with the number plate of TJD-382?"

An awful, uncomfortable silence fell over the pair as they stood on the garden path, Amy's folder lying open in her arms while Lucy stared at her with what seemed to be disbelief in her oddly youthful eyes.

Finally, the older woman spoke to break the silence. "Oh, yes, love, I do," she replied, hiding her uncertainty beneath a gentle smile, "but my son has it at the moment. He's a mechanic, you see. He's fixing it up for me." Seeing Amy's weak nod, Lucy's smile broadened as she continued. "Now, let's get to that tea."


	74. Ep 15: Right To Mourn Pt4

**Part 4**

Amy sat back in the rickety old wooden chair, her folder resting closed on the antique dining table while Lucy stood at the sink, interrupting the silence every so often with the clang of a spoon against metal. Amy couldn't help staring at the house. Everything within it seemed to be so ornate and perfect, if a little aged. It was beautiful, like something out of some exquisite painting. It kept her mind captured so deeply and for so long that she didn't notice the small china cup of tea being placed down before her next to her police folder.

"It's beautiful," Amy whispered in awe when she finally snapped back to attention, cupping her hands around the delicate china. She rose it to her lips, somewhat surprised at how nice it tasted. She'd always been more of a coffee person, but this tea was simply perfect. "Everything's beautiful here."

Lucy nodded as she picked up her own tea, a forlorn smile creeping into her face. "Yes, it is, isn't it? My husband, Harold, used to go away on business a lot. He used to always leave me alone with the children, but he always brought me back something lovely. They're all I have left of him now, I'm afraid."

Amy felt any trace of a smile leave her expression as she nodded sadly, not daring to meet Lucy's eyes in case she offended her somehow. "I'm sorry," she told her in a softly spoken voice. "It must be hard, living alone like this."

"Perhaps," Lucy replied, not really answering Amy's question, yet the detective didn't feel compelled to push the point. "A pretty little thing like you, you must have someone special in your life."

Bright red blush rose into Amy's cheeks at Lucy's words, forcing her to lower her face to hide it behind a curtain of silky brown. Involuntary tears pricked up in her eyes as she found her mind drifting off to PJ, the first man she had ever really trusted in a long time, the man who made her feel safe and wanted and special. Thinking about PJ suddenly made her very curious. He had been hiding something from her lately, and she couldn't help wondering what it was. "Yeah," she replied, unable to restrain a beaming smile. "Yeah, I do."

As a hushed silence fell between them again, Amy found herself turning to stare out the window into the backyard, becoming lost again in the maze of delicate flowers and vines. She couldn't help following the twisting vines with her eyes as they wound their way from the house, across the garden, around a large tree with its ancient tyre swing and finally to an old metal shed.

Her amazement vanished suddenly as she noticed a large piece of glass lying on the driveway near the silver metal roller door. She couldn't quite believe that she had even spotted it in the maze of plant life that flourished around it. Yet, now she had seen it, it seemed to stick out in an almost sickening contrast. If she didn't know any better, she'd have said that it had come from a car headlight, but surely it couldn't have…not this sweet, old dear, no matter what reservations Amy had about her…

In the few short moments that Amy had been transfixed by the piece of glass, Lucy had risen to her feet and smoothed out the creases in her cardigan. "I guess you'll be wanting to have a look in the shed, would I be right in assuming?"

Amy spun to stare at Lucy so quickly that her neck actually almost hurt. "Yeah," she whispered softly as she set her tea aside and gathered up her folder, "I think I'd better."

* * *

Nick sat back at his desk, unable to restrain a contented grin at the empty muster room around him. PJ was locked away in his office, staring lost in deep thought at something out of view in his hands, while Mark was busy working away on some overdue reports with such malice that Nick was certain he must have torn the paper into shreds by now.

He liked the silence that hung around the station almost as much as he liked the excitement of it being full. You couldn't get much quiet at home with Zoe Hamilton for a wife and identical twin sons who he could never seem to tell apart and who never stopped arguing. That morning, it had been Trevor taking Travis' pencil case – by that night; Travis would have taken Trevor's Tamagotchi. It was a never-ending cycle.

He closed his eyes as he tried to relish in the peaceful calm, only for the silence to be suddenly broken. "Nick? Nick bloody Schultz?!"

There was no mistaking that voice. He still knew it well, even though it would have been nearly ten years since he'd heard it. "Dash McKinley," he mumbled as he opened his eyes lazily, finding himself face to face with Dash as Kelly stood beside her, looking a little bemused. For once, a witty comment simply escaped him entirely. He shook his head, completely lost for words.

It seemed Dash was anything but. "Kelly told me that PJ was still here, but she mentioned nothing about you!" she responded, her voice dripping of the cheekiness and charm that Nick remembered well and almost fondly. "What the hell are you doing back here?"

Nick released a small chuckle as he rose to his feet, drawing himself up to his considerable height. He drew in a deep breath, smiling to himself. "Well, you see, I couldn't leave poor PJ and the others to deal with you on their own. Anyway, the big smoke is no place to bring up kids."

"You're telling me!" Dash exclaimed, her grin spreading broadly from ear to ear as she perched herself down on the corner of Nick's desk, making their height difference even more prominent. "Mt. Thomas is a much better place for me to bring up my daughter than Melbourne, or even some of the places I've been abroad."

Silence suddenly fell over the small gathering as PJ and Mark finally took notice of what was going on.

"You? Daughter?" Nick asked, eyebrows raised. "Well, well, well, times have changed, haven't they?"

Dash opened her mouth to comment, perhaps about her own little Phoebe or on Nick's hint at his own children, only to be interrupted by a suddenly cry of surprise from PJ. "Dash!" he exclaimed, crossing the muster room and clapping her back enthusiastically as he pulled her into an almost rib-breaking hug. "It's been ages! What the hell have you been up to?!"

"I've, well…" Dash began, only to trail off as PJ broke away and the lump in his pocket caught her eye. She made a quick snatch for it before he'd had the chance to stop her and opened it for her new colleagues to see. They all stared in wonder at the ring inside, before finally Dash looked up to him, a cheeky glint in her eye. "I think the real question is, the hell are you getting up to now?"

* * *

Amy stood in the doorway to the shed, staring with wide, tear-filled eyes at the sight that greeted her while Lucy just behind her shoulder. The little red charger that Lucy had claimed was with her son was actually sitting right before her, the front of it splattered with dried crimson blood and the headlights cleared smashed.

She slowly approached the car, her heart pounding in her chest as she crouched down, raising the piece of glass in her hand and comparing it to the broken headlight. She wasn't a car person in the slightest, but she was willing to bet anything that the piece of broken glass had come from the broken headlight.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Amy asked Lucy, closing her eyes as she tried to force back the tears that were welling there. Seeing this car made her think unpleasantly of Stephanie and the fact that she could die at any second. It made her think of the beautiful young woman lying on her back in hospital, little more than a shell of her former self, the person that both she and Lance had loved.

Lucy crept forward, her eyes suddenly seeming rather small as hot tears began to flow. "I…I…I didn't realise what had happened until…until after she was lying on the ground. She'd come out of…out of nowhere…"

Amy felt a horrible sob welling up within her and threatening to take control of her entire being. She began to bite her bottom lip, hoping that it might help stem the flow of tears. "Why didn't you stop?" she demanded, her voice snappy, yet shaking and wobbly. "Once you'd realised you'd hit her, why the hell didn't you stop?"

"I was frightened," Lucy replied, giving a helpless shrug as her eyes became distant, her mind obviously playing over the events of that morning. "I'd never done a thing wrong before in my entire life and…and I didn't know what was going to happen. There was some man helping her and…it was just so much easier to drive away. I was scared…I…I wasn't thinking straight…"

"Scared?" Amy whispered, finally rising to her feet and spinning to glare hard at Lucy as tears of pain and anger slid down her cheeks. "You're scared? What do you think her husband's feeling right now, knowing that he's going to lose the woman he loves at any second because of this? What do you think I'm feeling, knowing that I'll never get a chance to tell my childhood best friend that I'm sorry for everything I did, for never showing her how much I appreciated her and needed her?!" She paused, knowing full well that she was just thirty seconds away from breaking down into an angry fit of tears. "Lucy Williamson, you are under arrest."

* * *

Amy collapsed back against the wall of the CI office, burying her face within her hands. It had all been too much, really. Way too much. The whole day had been a living, breathing nightmare that had just about swallowed her whole. A sweet old lady who had never set a foot wrong in her life was now charged with manslaughter and an array of driving charges, not to mention Lance and Stephanie. Lance had phoned from the hospital just half an hour ago. Stephanie had passed away with him at her side, never once regaining consciousness and never once finding out that little Amy Fox was all grown up and taking back her life.

A soft knock sounded at the door and Nick Schultz invited himself inside, not even bothering to wait for Amy's reply. She quickly lowered her hands from her face, nervously brushing at her fringe as she flopped down behind her desk. "Piss off, Nick," she told him in a wobbling and almost bitter voice. "This is really not the time for one of your stupid bloody wisecracks."

"Wouldn't have dreamt of it," he responded, perching himself on the corner of her desk and nearly upending it in the process. He leapt off it, unable to restrain a nervous grin as it righted itself, leaving Amy's normally meticulously ordered paperwork an untidy mess. He was surprised to see that she was actually laughing at this, despite her previously downcast demeanour. "Ah…" he began with a nervous smile as he grabbed PJ's chair and dragged it over rather than trying to sit on her desk again. "Guess I don't know my own weight."

"You're a bloody idiot, Nick Schultz," she told him with a half-hearted smile. She couldn't quite believe that Nick was somehow making her smile, even when she'd just had one of the worst days of her life.

Nick nodded to himself, sitting back and folding his arms across his chest. "Yes," he replied, running a hand back through his messy hair. "That's what Zoe keeps telling me."

As the banter drew to a sudden end, a horrible silence fell between them. Amy would have been more than grateful if PJ could have made a timely return from the mess room, but unfortunately, he seemed to be a little sidetracked.

Nick finally spoke, leaning forward and staring at Amy with his soft, gentle eyes. "You're allowed to grieve, you know."

"What?" she demanded, narrowing her red eyes as she shook her head at him. "I don't understa…"

He leaned in closer, so that their faces were just inches apart. "You've been bottling up your grief all day, throwing yourself into your work instead of letting yourself grieve. Now, I'm the first person to admit that policing is one of the most powerful emotion anaesthetics known to man, but not if you just bottle it up completely and deny yourself permission to grieve."

Amy stared at him, desperately trying to hide her true feelings behind a façade of misunderstanding. "I think you've been watching too much Dr. Phil…"

She rose to her feet, biting her bottom lip absentmindedly as she made a dash for the door out into the muster room and freedom. Much to her annoyance, Nick lurched after her, grabbing hold of her shoulders and spinning her around to face him. They stared at each other for a long moment, before finally Amy felt her composure crumble. "I don't deserve to grieve, Nick," she whispered, her voice almost becoming lost in her throat. "Stephanie did so much for me – she gave me a friend, someone to talk to, someone to look out for me…and then I threw it all up in her face. I never did anything back, I just tagged along like a little lost puppy and then…I just disappeared when we were sixteen and…I don't even want to know how horrible she must have felt, never knowing where I was and if I was alright…wondering if I was lying dead in a ditch somewhere or…or…"

"Amy," Nick replied, gently pulling her into a firm hug. She was surprised at how comfortable it was, really. It was nothing like with PJ, none of the excitement or electricity or even just tender emotions, but it was comfortable. It cemented in her mind just how right she was in thinking that Nick was another one of the 'Walking Wounded'. He rubbed her back, unable to help a small smile. "Stephanie was a beautiful and kind woman who gave you so much and expected nothing in return. People come into our lives and…and they stay for a while and leave a mark on our lives. Sometimes, it's just a tiny little insignificant mark, but sometimes…sometimes it's a really big mark. No matter what kind of a mark she left on your life, you've got every right to mourn for her. Every right in the world."

* * *

PJ stood alone in the mess room, once again lost in a deep swirl of thoughts as he contemplated the small box in his hand. The ring he so badly wanted to slip onto Amy's finger and say the two simple words that would show just how much he needed her and wanted her to be in his life forever.

He could have killed Dash for finding it and making all of his colleagues very aware of what his plans were. He'd had to sit through endless congratulations and deep and meaningfuls that were designed to stir him into proposing to Amy. And, he had to admit, that he'd hadn't even thought about Maggie Doyle's face or that proposal years ago since. But he still couldn't bring himself to do it. What if she wasn't ready, like she had been on that July night at the station over three years ago? He couldn't stuff up again; he just didn't think he'd be able to stand it.

The door to the mess room suddenly opened and Amy stepped through, freezing midway through pushing hair back from her tear-stained eyes as she caught sight of PJ hurriedly stuffing something into the pocket of his dark pants. "What was that?" she asked him, her voice surprisingly devoid of emotion.

"What was what?" PJ responded, his voice a little too high-pitched and rushed for Amy's liking.

"The…the thing you just stuffed into your pocket." Amy replied, waving an arm in the vague direction of his now over-sized left pocket. He glanced down to it and opened his mouth to attempt to come up with some kind of feasible explanation, but he didn't get the chance. Amy was approaching him, her expression stern. "You've been hiding something from me for ages now and I'm not leaving until I find out what it is. Life is too short for…oh my God…"

Amy trailed off as she pulled the small box out from PJ's pocket, her eyes watering anew as she ran her thumb along the soft velvet, knowing full well what she was likely to find inside. Her eyes stung at the tears pricked up and she tried her best to keep them at bay. She tried to speak, but the words simply escaped her. She stared up at him, her emerald eyes silently pleading with PJ's for him to tell her that this simply wasn't real. That this wasn't happening. Instead, he reached out, prising her fingers off the box and taking it back into his own hands.

It felt comfortable now, he realised as a smile of certainty crept across his face. It felt right, it felt natural. It felt like the best damn thing he could do to show her how he felt. He slowly eased himself down onto one knee and opened the box slowly to expose the simple silver ring to Amy. She stared at it as she lost her battle against the tears that slid silently down her pale cheeks. The smile that was playing on her lips was unmistakable and sent a rush of excitement through his entire body. "It isn't much," PJ told her, shrugging with slight regret, "but it's all I could really afford without sending the two of us into bankruptcy."

Amy still couldn't tear her gaze away from the ring. It gleamed by the dim night lighting of the mess room, capturing her eyes. It was quite modest, not the sort of ring that people would normally gush over, but that all seemed irrelevant. It was perfect, simply perfect. A perfect ring from the perfect man. It kept her transfixed as her mind failed to process anything.

"Amy Fox," PJ continued, his eyes gleaming with all the hope of a young child, "you are the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with, through whatever comes and…and…will you do me the honour of becoming my wife?"

Words didn't really seem to be enough for Amy. She stared at PJ, her grin broadening. There was so much she wanted to say to him, to tell him as he knelt before her, pledging to spend the rest of his life with her as her husband. Yet, the words just didn't seem to come. Finally, she was able to force her mouth to force a single word, one that seemed to say it all, somehow. "Yes," she whispered in reply, her body almost trembling with the excitement. "Yes."

The word almost seemed to reverberate throughout the station. PJ and Amy remained motionless for less than half a second before Amy's reply finally seemed to sink in. PJ suddenly jumped to his feet, scooping Amy up into his arms and spinning her around on the spot. Adrenaline pulsed through her body as she was swept through the air before he enveloped her into his arms, kissing her passionately. After what felt like an eternity of being locked together in each other's arms, they finally broke apart, the grins still imprinted clearly on their faces. PJ silently took the ring from its box and slipped it over Amy's finger, their eyes connecting. Nothing could have been more perfect than that one moment together, one moment that could have easily lasted forever.

Nick approached the mess room door, desperately trying to resist the urge to chuckle contentedly at the sight of Amy and PJ together, the silver ring now clearly on Amy's finger. As he walked away, he couldn't help but puff out his chest just a little bit in pride. He was right; of course he'd been right. Amy and PJ were meant to be and they were finally doing what he knew that they should have done a long time ago.


	75. Ep 16: The Idealist Pt1

**Episode 16: "The Idealist"**

**Summary: **_Amy is haunted by the memories of her time in Melbourne Homicide when an old colleague is found dead in an apparent suicide. Alone at the station in the dark of night, two of the Heelers are attacked and left fighting for their lives._

**Part 1**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Always There" _by Kate Alexa.

_PJ stuffed his hands into the pockets of his dark pants as he approached the doorway out into the muster room from the corridor, his whole body almost trembling with fear. He didn't know what exactly it was that had possessed him to come back to the station when he had already gone home to Jonesy and Alex and a half-cold pizza. But something had been nagging at him all day, refusing to let him be, no matter how hard he tried to dismiss it. The memory of last night, of having her in his arms and so close to his heart that it had felt almost as though they could have merged and become one. She had dried her tears on his tuna fish sandwich-smelling hanky while he had made some gag about her ruining his supportive and heroic moment. And then she'd smiled at him. _

_That smile. He'd never planned to fall in love with it. They'd clashed professionally when she'd first arrived. He didn't want another detective on his turf and he wasn't even going to take any chances when it came to falling in love again, not after Jo. He didn't deserve to fall in love again. Not after what he'd done. But then Garth had told him about her past. About the fact that she'd been sexually abused when she was only a child, when she should have been protected and cared for and loved by doting parents. He'd made it mission to make her smile. He was familiar with the face of pain and he didn't want to see such a beautiful woman hurting because of what some bastard had done to her years ago. But he'd fallen in love with her, with her smile. With everything she did. _

_He hadn't planned to act. He knew that she was still agonising over what her uncle had done to her and he knew that he probably wasn't ready yet either, if he ever would be. But then last night had happened. He'd hugged her, just wanting to give her a bit of support when she was feeling like the whole world had let her down. He almost could have gone on with his façade if he hadn't hugged her; he almost could have continued to pretend that his feelings for Amy didn't go past friendship, but not anymore. Not when he yearned for her to be that close to him again, when that day had been pure agony because he simply wanted to hold her in his arms and couldn't._

_So he was back at the station, his hands shaking in his pockets as he tried to retain enough conviction to take the next step. "Amy?"_

_Amy looked up from where she stood in the muster room, still wearing that day's suit, as she sorted through paperwork on top of one of her uniformed colleague's desks. She stared at him through curious eyes, the tiniest hint of a smile playing on her lips. "I thought you went home," she remarked, trying to hide the blush from her face as she combed strands of dark hair back from her face._

_He shrugged playfully as he took several hesitant steps towards her, unable to restrain a grin. "Well, someone's got to make sure you eat," he told her as he motioned back to the mess room as an afterthought. "We can't have you starving to death on us."_

_She stared at him hard for a long moment, before finally breaking into weak laughter. "Okay," she told him as her smile broadened, "you've won me. So which of your four famous food groups are you going to be making me food from this time?"_

_PJ found himself laughing at Amy's words, the memory of his comment several months ago returning. He remembered clearly the night that the two of them had been working back to catch the serial killer who had been terrorising Mt. Thomas, when PJ had told her that they had to eat. He also remembering being scared half to death when Amy had staggered into the station, calling his name and covered in blood…_

"_Oh, I don't know," he replied cheekily and he pressed the memory to the back of his mind. "I was thinking of raiding the Boss' Tim Tams."_

_She laughed, sitting back on the edge of the desk she had been working at just seconds before. "PJ Hasham, you're a brave man."_

"_Nah, not really," he commented as he closed the distance between them, leaning in and lowering his voice to a whisper as he cast fake furtive glances around the muster room. "I was planning on blaming Joss for it."_

_Silence fell between them as the banter drew to a close. PJ watched as Amy looked away, suddenly looking distinctly uncomfortable. His conviction was ebbing away on him, it was now or never. "Amy…you're my best mate and nothing's ever going to change that…"_

"_Yeah?" Amy asked, narrowing her eyes as she stared at him intently. She didn't quite know where he was going with this, but something deep inside her was starting to realise. _

"_Well…I…" PJ paused, kicking himself inwardly. He'd had it all planned out just seconds ago and now it was all gone. "…I think you're the most beautiful woman on this planet and…and I'd hate to lose what it is we've got between us."_

_Amy opened her mouth to speak, only to find that no words came. She quickly closed it, deciding that it would perhaps be better to let PJ do the talking._

"_Last night was…well, amazing," he continued, his hands trembling worse than ever before in his pocket. Heck, taking the next step with Maggie and Jo hadn't been this difficult and nerve-wracking, why was it like this with Amy? "I realised something last night…I realised that…I don't want to live without you, Amy. Not…not anymore."_

_He met her gaze, his resolve beginning to crumble further at the tears in her eyes. He knew her well, almost better than he knew himself sometimes, yet he couldn't tell what she thought of this. Her expression was blank, except for the tears in her eyes._

_He moved in slowly, letting his eyes close gently as his lips connected with Amy's. For a long moment, she didn't respond, until she finally wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. He enveloped her in his arms as he had the night before, drawing further into the kiss as Amy did the same. Words simply couldn't describe the feelings of excitement and contentment that ran through his body as he held her in his arms, their lips locked together in a kiss. Their first kiss._

_After what felt almost like an eternity, they broke apart, both slightly out of breath. Their eyes connected, a certain spark passing between their bodies as they stood motionless in the middle of the muster room, completely ignorant of how compromising a sight they'd be if someone happened to walk in. _

_PJ rose his hand to Amy's cheek, gently running the back of his hand along her cheekbone as the words tumbled forth from his mouth before he was able to gather the sense to stop them. "I love you, Amy; I love you so much…"_

_Her body suddenly froze against his as her face drained of all colour. She pulled herself away from his grip, her emerald eyes wide and full of tears of fear and terror. Her breath seemed to come in shaky gasps as she stood before him, and he suddenly realised what he'd done wrong. For all the support and understanding he'd given her, he'd forgotten one of the keys to her problems in relations – the powerful negative connotations that the word 'love' had attained._

_She suddenly brought her hand hard against PJ's cheek – so hard that it left a lingering bright red imprint of her hand on his skin – and turned on her heel, disappearing out into the corridor and out of sight. _

_If he'd known about the phone call she'd gotten earlier that day, if he'd known about where she was about to go, if he'd known about how long it would be before he saw her again, he would have followed her. But he didn't know and he couldn't. So he remained in the muster room, flopping back into Evan Jones' seat as he hid his face in his hands._

_If I'd have known, I would be by your side_

_If I'd have known, I would have said goodbye

* * *

__Tom sat back in his old comfy couch in the rectory living room, channel surfing half-heartedly while a half-empty glass of scotch sat at his side. He hadn't drowned himself this heavily in alcohol for a while, but it had just been one of those weeks. The accident involving Amy's cousin and those local kids was still hanging unpleasantly over his younger charges, resisting all attempts by Mark to bring any kind of joy to the station. _

_Over the dull roar of the television, he heard the sound of someone knocking on his front door. For a moment, he considered ignoring it. He just wasn't in the mood for visitors right now, but then he thought better of it. He was a police officer after all and this might just be important. As he climbed to his tired feet and approached the door, he said a slight prayer that it wasn't Kelly or Chris coming over to try to cheer him up._

_It wasn't. Instead, Tom found himself standing opposite Amy Fox, whose usually calm and critical emerald eyes were brimming over with warm salty tears. She stood on his doorstep, distractedly playing with loose strands of her hair while she fought back quiet sobs._

"_Amy?" Tom asked, a little surprised at the concern creeping into his voice. He couldn't help it though – Amy Fox was such a strong and capable woman that the sight of her in fits of tears was alarming. "What's wrong? Has…has something happened? Has someone been hurt?"_

_She stared at him, motionless, for a long moment, before finally shaking her head. She lowered her gaze, suddenly quite embarrassed at letting the Boss see her in such a state. "No, no. Everyone's fine as far as I know," she replied, her voice wobbling and breaking with every syllable. "I just…I just thought it would be the…the decent thing to do to let you…let you know that I'm taking up a posting in Melbourne Homicide."_

"_Ho…Homicide?" Tom asked in disbelief, the word almost catching in his throat. He'd worked with a lot of detectives over the years and Amy Fox was up there with the best of them. Of course Homicide seemed like the next logical step for someone with Amy's talent, but he didn't want to lose her. Amy was always the one willing to give his theories a chance, even when those more experienced were dismissing them as a waste of time. He remembered fondly that she was the first person to come up with a logical explanation for how the Baxters were behind the bombing. _

_Amy nodded, biting her bottom lip as the tears continued to fall. "Yeah," she replied, combing strands of fringe back from her eyes. "I got the offer today; they want me to start tomorrow morning."_

_Tom tried to open his mouth to congratulate her on receiving such an illustrious job offer, but he simply couldn't. There was something deeper going on here, something more than Amy was saying. He was a fairly good judge of character and he knew that Amy Fox wouldn't just up and leave like this. She wasn't that spontaneous or impulsive. She was the kind of person who would spend the next month thinking it over and eventually come to a decision from that._

_Then he remembered PJ. PJ Hasham had been dancing around all day, casting longing glances to Amy when he thought no one else was looking. He had known PJ Hasham for fifteen years and he prided himself on being a bit of an expert when it came to his detective. He didn't have to be a psychologist to know that PJ had fallen head over heels for Amy._

"_Did PJ say something to you?" Tom queried, before he was able to stop himself._

_The change that passed through Amy's face was unmistakable. It was a look of utmost pain and betrayal, of fear and uncertainty. It told Tom instantly that PJ Hasham was the very reason why she stood before him now, declaring that she was taking another job. "PJ's got nothing to do with it," she lied, her face turning a horrible shade of bright red. "Look, I just wanted to tell you that I'd taken the new position out of courtesy."_

_She turned to leave and Tom knew he had to do something, even if just to give her a little bit of a reason to want to come back one day. He lurched after her, closing his rough and worn hand around her slender wrist. She turned to glare at him, but it broke down as he opened his arms and pulled her close to him. She let herself fall into his chest, resting her head on his shoulder as the tears continued to flow._

_He let his hand rub her back soothingly, as a father might do for a distressed child. "You're a wonderful police officer and woman, Amy Fox," he told her softly. "The station's always going have a space for you in it. You're a big part of the team and…and we're going to miss you."

* * *

_

_PJ brushed the sleep from his tired eyes as he wandered into the CI office from the back entrance, yawning to himself. He could almost kid himself into believing that last night's debacle with Amy had only been a terrifying nightmare. Almost._

_He froze as he suddenly found himself staring at the empty desk across from his. Every single sign of Amy Fox had been cleared away and even her neatly ordered piles of paperwork had been transferred over to his desk. He slipped over to his desk, dumping his bag on his chair before heading back over to Amy's desk to investigate. Every drawer had been emptied, in fact, if he didn't know better; he would have said that Amy Fox had never set foot inside this office. "What the hell…"_

"_PJ!" PJ looked up in alarm as Tom's voice called out to him from the other side of the station. He stood in the doorway to his own office, motioning to PJ with his hand, his expression one of great seriousness. Something was very wrong._

_He entered Tom's office, folding his arms across his chest as he stared hard at the Boss. "What's going on here, Boss?" he demanded, perhaps a little too rashly for his liking. "Where is she?"_

_Tom didn't need to ask PJ who he'd meant by 'she'. Amy's late night visit and her uncharacteristically impulsive move to Homicide were proof enough to him. He approached PJ until they stood just centimetres apart. "What happened between the two of you last night, PJ?"_

"_What?!"_

"_I had Amy Fox on my doorstep last night, crying over something that I presume you did!" Tom told him, his voice a little too protective and angry than he had wanted it to be. He found himself prodding a finger into PJ's chest, however – and almost to his surprise – PJ didn't pull away or even attempt to defend himself. "Bloody hell, PJ Hasham, what the hell did you say to her?!"_

_PJ felt a horrible lump rising into his throat. He still couldn't quite believe what he had done. He was always the one who had understood Amy the best, who had understood her issues with love and that she still connected the word with what her uncle had done. "Nothing that I haven't been wanting to say for months."_

_Tom looked away, burying his face in his hand as he leant back against a nearby wall. He shook his head, before finally lowering his hand to peer at PJ above it. "And you lot all wonder why I don't like in-office relationships," he mumbled to himself. "Well, she's gone, PJ. She left for Melbourne last night."_

"_On a holiday?" PJ asked hopefully, yet he somehow already knew what the answer would be._

_The Boss shook his head dismally. "No," he told PJ, regret creeping into his voice. "She was offered a position in Melbourne Homicide and accepted it. She'd probably be at work by now."_

_PJ stared at Tom in disbelief for a long moment before he began to make a dash for the doorway. "I've got to call her, I've got to stop her…"_

"_PJ Hasham, you'll do no such thing!" Tom roared, catching the attention of the uniforms who had been working quietly in the muster room outside Tom's office. "The way Amy Fox was last night, I'm pretty sure that you'll do nothing except drive her further away if you try going after her." Tom's words had a visible effect on PJ. The detective slumped back into the chair opposite Tom's desk, burying his face in his hands. Tom leaned in close to PJ, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. "But she'll come back. Amy Fox isn't finished in Mt. Thomas yet and I'd be willing to bet my life that she'll come back sooner or later. You're just going to have to be patient enough to wait for when she's ready to face this town again."_

Amy leant back against the bench in the mess room, distracted once again from making herself a cup of coffee by the gleaming silver ring on her finger. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever laid eyes upon, despite Nick's jeering comments to PJ at their celebration drinks that it was stingy and cheap. She still couldn't quite get her head around it, the fact that she, Amy Fox, was going to get married. It almost felt as though she were in a wonderfully pleasant dream and would wake up at any second to find that none of it had been real.

PJ entered the mess room, his broad grin still untouched after the week that had passed since the proposal. He wrapped his arms around her, planting the tenderest of kisses upon her lips. When their lips finally parted, he found himself gently pushing strands of her soft dark hair back behind her ear. "So how's my beautiful fiancé this morning?"

"In dire need of a strong, steaming hot cup of International Roast," Amy replied, the cheekiest smile she could manage spreading across her lips.

"I think I can manage that," he told her with a wink as he busied himself at the sink, only to be interrupted just moments later by Dash McKinley.

The two spun to stare at her as she entered wordlessly, looking rather uncertain of herself as she shuffled her feet awkwardly. "Inspector Piper Morris just called the station," she told them in a soft voice. "One of their detectives has just committed suicide."


	76. Ep 16: The Idealist Pt2

**Part 2**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Unfaithful" _by Rihanna.

Amy let out a deep, shaky breath as she leaned forward in her seat in the corridor of the hospital morgue, small silent tears welling in her eyes. Her hands were clasped together so tightly in her lap that her knuckles were beginning to turn white and she was sure that she was close to cutting off the circulation. When Dash had burst into the mess room, saying that a St. Davids detective had committed suicide, Amy had started praying. Praying to a God she had never believed in that it wasn't who she thought it was. But it had been. A lonely country road and his service revolver…no way to die.

Quiet footsteps approached her as she looked up to find herself staring up at the soft and concerned face of Nick's wife, Zoe Hamilton. The doctor was absentmindedly brushing fluffy curls from her face as she let her eyes meet Amy's. "It's all a mere formality, really," Zoe told her in a gentle and kind voice that Amy remembered well from when she had first met Zoe at Tom's funeral back in November. "You were listed as next of kin, so we really just need you to…"

"I know how this works," Amy interrupted, her voice snappy and her temper short as she climbed to numb and shaky feet. She smoothed out the creases in her suit as she drew in a deep breath to try to steady herself. "Let's just get this over and done with."

Zoe nodded in reply as she turned and motioned for Amy to follow. She led the detective through a doorway and into a room that was just as silent and cold as the corridor they had just been in. Inside it was a single slab and lying on top of it was what was clearly a body that had been covered by a thin white sheet.

The sight made Amy's blood run cold and a tight lump formed in her throat, making it almost hard to breathe. Her heart pounded loudly in her chest as Zoe approached the figure's head, letting her grip tighten over the edge of the sheet. Her expression was one of the utmost sympathy, mixed with a certain amount of reverent respect. Zoe Hamilton had probably done this a thousand times over; Amy reflected numbly as the doctor lifted the sheet and exposed the sight that Amy had been praying not to see.

He lay back on the cold slab, his eyes closed tightly and his skin unnaturally pale. A large blood-stain at his right temple immediately told the story of what had happened, what this man had been driven to. Amy couldn't help but notice the fear on his face, yet she somehow couldn't quite work out what it was that he had been so afraid of. Surely, to be able to turn a gun on yourself and pull the trigger on a lonely country road, death couldn't have evoked this strong a terror. Something didn't quite add up in her mind, but she simply nodded anyway. She wasn't here to come up with another explanation for why he was lying here, only to confirm that it was indeed Garth Henderson lying cold and still.

Her right hand reached out to him before she was able to stop it and she felt cold shivers run up her spine as her skin met his. His once warm and soft cheek now felt as cold as ice, the lips that had once touched hers now lifeless and dull.

"Garth…" she finally managed in a gasping whisper as she stood beside his body, somehow unable to tear her eyes or her hand from his colourless face. He was merely a shell of the man he had once been, simply a vessel in which the spirit of a dedicated police officer had once rested. Not the spirit of a suicidal man, something deep inside her pointed out as her body gave a jolt.

Involuntary tears welled in her eyes as she remained there for what could have easily been hours, but was in fact only several minutes before Zoe approached her, placing her hand on Amy's arm and gently pulling it away from Garth's body. "Do you want me to call PJ for you?" she asked, her voice still soft and soothing.

Amy shook her head sharply, withdrawing her arm from Zoe's grip and nervously combing hair back from her face with her fingers. "No," she replied, backing away towards the doorway. "No…I'll…I'll be fine…"

She quickly stormed out of the morgue and found herself almost running back towards the main part of the hospital, hot tears beginning to spill free from her eyes and slide down her unusually pale cheeks. She found herself mumbling "not Garth, not Garth" incoherently under her breath as she tore away from where her former lover now lay dead. When she eventually felt tired enough to stop running, she collapsed backward against a wall, burying her face in her hands as she sank to the floor in a sobbing mess. After all the betrayal, after all the hurt, after all the bullshit, losing Garth really stung, no matter how many times she had once wished he'd just vanish off the face of the earth forever.

_Amy tightened her grip on her large black work bag as she waited impatiently in the lift, biting her bottom lip as it slowly rose towards her floor. She was almost trembling, partly with excitement of what she'd find beyond the silver doors of the lift now that she had finally made it to the big league of the force and partly with the same feelings of fear and regret that had driven her away from Mt. Thomas less than twenty-four hours ago. _

_The doors finally slid open, revealing the fifth floor of Homicide to the quickly breath-taken Amy. Any number of plain-clothed officers were milling around a large office area, many busy on telephones, while others contented themselves with chatting amongst themselves. A paper plane narrowly missed her right ear as she began to move hesitantly through the crowd, most of which stopped to stare at her in trepidation and curiosity as she passed. A bright red blush had well and truly risen in her cheeks by the time she had reached what was clearly the 'Boss' office' of Melbourne Homicide's fifth floor._

_The door opened, revealing a man who stood about a head taller than her, wearing a suit that almost looked as though it belonged in a James Bond movie rather than the police force. The sight of this suited man made Amy wish almost longingly for the casualness of Mt. Thomas CI, for every aspect of PJ's relaxed and calm personality. But even just the mere thought of anything to do with PJ swiftly brought with it the reasons for why she had left and her hands suddenly began to tremble again._

_He drew himself up to his full height as he surveyed Amy through steely blue eyes, which, combined with his cropped black hair, immediately told Amy that he wasn't a man to be messed with. He finally nodded to himself, a somewhat smug smile falling upon his lips. "You must be that new detective from Mt. Thomas," he observed, folding his arms across his chest. "You reek of country quaintness."_

_Not quite sure of how to take his comments, Amy offered out her hand, forcing a slight smile to her lips. "Senior Detective Amy Fox," she introduced, waiting expectantly for some kind of a response. _

"_Ah…" the man grumbled in reply as Amy pulled her hand away, realising that she was never going to get a hand shake from him. "The infamous Detective Senior Constable Fox. I've heard you were once a part of Organised Crime, your name has popped up in several conversations with some of my…associates."_

_Amy paused, her mind reflecting over just what this man had meant by his reluctant use of the word 'associates', before she eventually managed to shake it to the back of her mind. "I was," she explained, her voice awfully high-pitched and strained. "I left after I got the Mt. Thomas offer after the police station was destroyed in the bombing."_

_The man didn't seem to take much notice of Amy's words. "I'm Detective Senior Sergeant Lloyd Johnson and this is my turf," he told her, his voice firm and cold. "I don't know what you're used to out in the sticks, but here, my way is the only way, got it?" He barely gave Amy time enough to nod, before waving a large hand off in the vague direction of another, much smaller, office. "You'll be sharing an office with Detective Sergeant Craig – her insistence, not mine, believe me. Well…what are you waiting for, written permission? Go!"_

_Amy had barely jumped back out of the door way in time to avoid being hit in the face by Lloyd Johnson's slamming door. She stared at it hard for a long moment, the lump in her throat growing rapidly. She got the awful feeling that she was way out of her depth here and it was almost enough to send her bolting back over to the lift and running back to the safety of Mt. Thomas. But only almost._

_The door to what was apparently Detective Sergeant Craig's office opened with a soft squeak and a warm and familiar face peered out. Amy felt her heart lifting greatly at the sight of the woman standing in the doorway, her face a mixture of pleasure and concern._

"_Lisa!" Amy cried, unable to restrain herself from racing over and throwing her arms around the detective, despite the odd stares from her new colleagues.

* * *

_

_Lisa Craig sat back in her chair, contemplating Amy and her coffee cup in turns. Amy, meanwhile, sat opposite in a much less comfortable and much more rickety chair, silently wringing her hands together in her lap. Silky straight strands of light blonde, almost white, hair hung around Lisa's face, framing it and bringing out her vibrant and clear blue eyes. Yet, Amy couldn't quite help noticing that Lisa's eyes were troubled, far more than they had been last time they'd met._

"_You should have told me about the Homicide offer," Lisa told her, her voice almost mother-like in its sternness. "I didn't find out until I came in this morning, I almost had to beg him to let you share my office." Her voice suddenly dropped as she leant in closer to Amy and motioned for the younger woman to do the same. "But now you're here," she continued, casting a furtive glance out into the main office, "you've got to keep your head low, okay?" _

_Amy stared at Lisa with confusion, her pleasure at seeing a familiar face becoming increasingly short-lived. She'd known Lisa since she was young, only a tender sixteen year old who had just become very aware of the hardships of the adult world, yet the things Lisa was saying just didn't make sense to her at all._

"_You would have been better off in Mt. Thomas," Lisa told her, suddenly looking every single bit of her thirty-seven years. "What went wrong there, anyway? You used to ring me nearly every day, always saying how wonderful Mt. Thomas was and how much you loved working there."_

_Amy looked away, suddenly wishing that she had a hole she could crawl into and die in. Every mention and every thought of anything connected to PJ brought on a painful sensation to cry and a sinking sensation in her chest that she couldn't explain and that she didn't like at all. "It just…" she trailed off, desperately trying to find some way of explaining it to Lisa without going into the painful details of what she and PJ had shared. "I just needed a change of scenery, that's all," she finally replied, forcing a half-hearted chuckle. "I was getting itchy feet…"_

_Lisa just shook her head at Amy, small tears of pain finding their way into her eyes. "I wish you'd told me about the Homicide offer, Amy, I really do…I wish you hadn't accepted it…"_

_Lisa was cut off however, as the office door burst open and another familiar face stared at Amy with joy in his eyes. Amy felt her face falter at the sight of Garth Henderson as he stood in the doorway, beaming at her brightly._

_In all of her desperation to get out of Mt. Thomas and away from PJ Hasham, she'd forgotten completely about Garth._

Amy brought the CI car to a stop underneath a large tree that dangerously overhung the road, her vision becoming misty as tears continued to well in her eyes. Officers swarmed around what appeared to be an old green Ford Falcon, some talking in hushed voices while others made scribbled notes on the folders resting in their arms.

She slowly climbed out of the car, her heart still pounding in her chest as she stared at the scene before her. If not for the sounds of her colleagues talking around her, it would have been dead silent. She struggled to imagine Garth, the man she had once thought of as her 'kindred spirit', standing alone in the dusty silence, making the conscious decision to take his own life and raising his own gun to his head…

"Zoe rang me, said you might be heading out here."

Amy spun around sharply to find herself face to face with PJ, his soft blue eyes narrowed in concern and perhaps his own grief. He opened his arms for her, letting his fiancée fall against his chest and wrap her arms tightly around his torso. She gave a heavy sigh as she tightened her grip on PJ, her eyes almost unseeing. "He wouldn't kill himself, Peej," she whispered, her voice almost giving out on her as she spoke. "He could be a bloody weak bastard sometimes, but he's not suicidal…he's just not suicidal…he couldn't turn his own gun on himself…"

PJ gently began to twist soft strands of Amy's hair around his forefinger. "Maybe he just hit rock bottom, Amy," he suggested, his voice almost devoid of emotion. "We both know how difficult his childhood was, what with his father…"

"His father's got nothing to do with this!" Amy snapped, her voice so loud that several of the officers around them turned to stare in curiosity. They quickly seemed to lose interest, busying themselves again. She lowered her voice to a soft hiss as she pulled away from her fiancé. "Come on, PJ, tell me that you aren't buying this suicide thing."

"Amy, the evidence…"

"Evidence can lie!" Amy snapped, again earning herself several confusion glares. "This doesn't have any of the signs of something Garth Henderson would do. He'd…God…he wouldn't have done it like this. Not on a lonely country road. He would have made it clearer why he did it…a note…a phone call…He would have tried to contact me first, I know him, PJ, I know what he's like!"

PJ reached out, gripping Amy's shoulders to stop her from raising her voice any higher. She almost seemed to dissolve into tears in his grip. A heavy silence hung over the pair, broken only by Amy's soft, almost silent, sobs. He drew in a deep breath, finding himself biting his bottom lip as Amy often did. "News travels within the Victoria Police like wildfire," he reminded her, his voice soft and gentle, yet still with its usual probing quality. "He would have found out about our engagement by now, surely."

"So?" Amy demanded, shaking her head as her voice caught in her throat.

"So," PJ replied, running a tender thumb along Amy's tear-stained cheek, tracing over the shape of her cheekbone, "he never exactly made a secret of how he felt about you. It was always pretty obvious that he never stopped hoping that you might be able to forgive him and return to your old relationship. Maybe…maybe the news that you had gotten engaged to another man was enough to push him over the edge…enough to make him feel like death was the only way out…"

She began shaking her head more sharply, her mind becoming an indistinguishable blur of thoughts. She couldn't believe what she was hearing, no way. PJ couldn't be right, he just couldn't be. She didn't want to believe that he was, anyway. After all the pain Garth had put her through, surely she couldn't have hurt him so badly that he'd rather kill himself than go on living. But…she found herself remembering how he had reacted to the news that she and PJ were in a relationship, the way that his voice had lost all passion and life when he'd realised what was going on. Her heart seemed to sink heavily in her chest as she thought over what had just happened. The thought of Amy being happy with someone other than himself had been torturing Garth for years now and she knew that as well as PJ did, but had he really taken his own life because of it?

_It kills him inside_

_To know that I am happy with some other guy_


	77. Ep 16: The Idealist Pt3

**Part 3**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Real Life" _by Evermore and _"Life on Mars" _by David Bowie.

_Amy sat alone in one of the Homicide cars, staring dejectedly down into her lap as though it might somehow change what had happened. Being face to face with Garth Henderson still brought on that wave of helplessness and worthlessness that it used to, even now when they were both equals in Homicide. Working with Lisa Craig again would simply be an honour, though something didn't seem quite right in her mind. She remembered that Lisa had once loved working with her, yet now she wished that Amy was still back in Mt. Thomas CI. And then there was Lloyd Johnson…_

_The driver's side door opened and the formidable Lloyd Johnson eased himself into the driver's seat, wearing a smug grin on his stern face. He glanced over to Amy briefly, before turning back to the road and bringing the car roaring into life._

"_So, how long were you working in the sticks for?" he asked, suddenly breaking the sullen silence._

_Her head snapped up at the sound of Lloyd Johnson's voice as she met his eyes with uncertainty. "A little over a year," she replied, her own voice catching in a horribly uncomfortable lump in her throat. "I arrived in early July; the day after the old police station was blown up."_

"_Hope that wasn't long enough for you to pick up any nasty country habits," Lloyd mumbled as he turned a corner sharply, cutting in front of an old station wagon and very nearly causing a collision on the busy Melbourne street. Amy found herself craning her neck to get a good look at the disaster that Lloyd had almost created._

_She slowly turned back to face the front, nervously biting her bottom lip and combing her fringe back from her eyes. "Like…like what?" she queried, her heart beginning to beat a little faster in her chest as Lloyd nearly ran down a ten-year-old boy crossing the street before them. She was barely thirty years old, yet Lloyd Johnson was going to give her a premature heart attack if he kept driving like this. She didn't like dangerous drivers almost as much as she didn't like rapists and abusers. After all, it was thanks to a dangerous driver that she had grown up without her own parents…_

_Her thoughts were sharply interrupted by Lloyd's cold and almost uncaring voice. "It's in my experience that country cops see things in black and white," he explained as he managed to turn a corner without nearly causing an accident, much to Amy's relief. "You know, they see solving crime as a black and white kind of thing. Very idealistic, not suited to Homicide work."_

_She stared at him, her fear slowly giving way to mistrust as her eyes narrowed and became increasingly critical of the man beside her. "Is idealistic an insult now?" she asked him, her voice almost taking on a distracted quality._

_Lloyd chuckled to himself before looking over to Amy. She noticed how his eyes seemed to be almost misty, as though he were somewhere else entirely. "So you are an idealist, then," he remarked, turning back to the road ahead before Amy had a chance to reply. "Well, well, well, little idealistic Foxy…let me show you how things work in the real world."_

_Welcome to the real life_

_I've come to realise it's no game_

_The use of the old nickname Alex had once given her sent shivers down Amy's spine. The nickname hadn't bothered her that much when Alex had used it, despite the number of times she had reprimanded him for it, but it took on a more vindictive quality coming from Lloyd Johnson's mouth. _

_Something was beginning to nag at her. Something was telling her that Lloyd Johnson wasn't everything he tried to pretend he was and what was really frightening her was the extents he might go to to cover himself.

* * *

_

_Her hands trembled almost uncontrollably as Amy stood over the sink in the Homicide tea room, her breath coming in shaky, shallow gasps. What she'd just seen a fellow police officer do made her feel sick to her stomach and almost ashamed to be a part of the same Homicide crew. Her suspicions of Lloyd Johnson were more than correct – not only had he just bashed a random man and dragged him in for questioning, he'd also thumped him in the interview room and beat him into a confession while she'd stood in the corner, turning pale at the sight._

_Take a look at the lawman_

_Beating up the wrong guy_

_She'd heard about things like this, they all had. It was almost impossible to work in the police force and not hear about corrupt police officers who fit innocent people up for crimes and used excessive violence against civilians. Perhaps it was because she'd been working in Mt. Thomas for too long, but she'd become convinced that she'd never see one. She'd dealt with corrupt police officers before – her old boss, for starters – but she'd never seen anything like this._

_The door opened, sending a horrible jolt through Amy's entire body. She glanced over her shoulder briefly, catching a glimpse of Lloyd Johnson's face. He was fuming at her, yet somehow almost looking contented and pleased with himself at the same time. Before she even had a chance to react, he grabbed her shoulders roughly, spinning her around and throwing her hard against the tea room bench._

_She winced in pain, closing her eyes tightly as she grabbed blindly for the bench to keep herself upright. Her eyes flew open just seconds later when she realised that cold, rough hands were resting on her stomach and slowly making their way up her body. Terror flashed through her eyes as she stared at Lloyd Johnson, silently begging him for mercy. She knew that she couldn't fight him – Lloyd Johnson was considerably bigger than she was and she didn't want to end up as beaten and bloodied as the poor man in the interview room. And who knew if he'd even stop when it came to attacking her. She had to let him have his way if she wanted a chance of being able to walk away._

_However, Lloyd's hands quickly left her body as he pulled away, straightening his suit and smiling to himself, almost as though he had just sorted out a very big problem. His smug smile was almost worse than if he'd said something to her at all, Amy realised as he turned and walked away, closing the door behind him. _

_She began to bite her bottom lip, silent tears pricking up in her eyes and threatening to spill over onto her cheeks. She slumped back against the bench, desperately trying to busy herself by tidying her hair and clothes. In any other situation, she would have instantly decided to report it. Lloyd Johnson had just beaten an innocent man into confessing to something he never did, then very nearly raped her in the tea room. But this wasn't any ordinary situation. Lloyd Johnson was too strong for her and could easily hurt her again if she even put a toe out of line._

_Sitting terrified and alone in the Homicide tea room, Amy found herself desperately wishing for the safety and sanctuary of Mt. Thomas – PJ Hasham and all. _

Amy sat back in her office in the station, biting her bottom lip absentmindedly as she stared down at the photographs lying on her desk. They were of Garth's body lying on the dusty dirt road, his gun lying limply from his cold hand. The images made her feel sick to her stomach, but she somehow couldn't tear her gaze away. That expression of terror was still clear on every inch of his face that the photographs had captured. There was just something about that look of terror that she couldn't dismiss. It was nagging at her, refusing to let her accept what she was being told.

As she sat alone in her office, she found herself silently reflecting on the case. If Garth hadn't taken his own life, as all her colleagues seemed to think, then it must have been murder. The more she thought about the possibility of Garth having been murdered, the more it seemed to make sense. Perhaps someone had killed him – execution style – and then stuffed the gun in his hand to make it look like a suicide. It made sense, or at least, she'd heard more outrageous.

She quickly began to shuffle through the assortment of files on her desk, desperately searching for a scrap of paper to jot down her ideas on. She eventually found an old notebook and pulled out her old blue biro, only to find herself lost of ideas. Garth was a police officer; there could be any number of people who'd want him dead. But there had to be someone…surely someone…she closed her eyes tightly, letting her mind drift back through the database of names and events that swirled around in her head. Whoever had killed Garth would have had a bloody good reason to do it and was bloody smart. They knew how the police would handle it and knew how to get away with it.

Suddenly her mind seemed to latch onto one name; one person who she knew hated her and probably Garth as well. She felt a strong sense of terror run through her body as she thought over it, considering the name with fear. Lloyd Johnson.

She lowered her head, burying her face in her hands. "Oh my God…" she whispered, shaking her head as her voice became full of regret and disbelief. "What the hell did I drag him into…"

_Amy didn't dare return to the main office until well after night had fallen, when most of her colleagues had retired to the local hotels to probably drink themselves stupid. She'd spent most of the afternoon and early evening locked in the tea room and bathroom in turn, trying her hardest not to get caught out. She still couldn't get the image of Lloyd Johnson beating that poor man out of her mind, or the terror at what he'd very nearly done to her. She'd long worked out that he'd stopped on purpose, probably to leave her in suspense as to whether or not he'd try it again._

_When she did eventually emerge, she found the main office deserted, save for Garth standing behind a desk, chewing absentmindedly on an old black biro as his fingers danced across the computer keyboard. After the nightmare of what had happened between her and Lloyd Johnson, a familiar face was comforting, even if it was the man she had once accused of attempter murder._

_She approached him, the sick feeling not gone from her throat, mouth or stomach. "Has Detective Senior Sergeant Johnson gone home?" she asked, apprehensively shooting a glance to the office she had visited that morning._

_Garth nodded without looking up, continuing to tap away at his computer. "Yep," he replied in an almost uncaring tone. "He's probably gone onto the pub to find his latest floozy."_

"_Latest floozy?" Amy found herself asking, blindly grabbing for the nearest chair and pulling it over to Garth's desk. She sat down, her whole body still feeling numb and almost dirty._

"_Yeah," Garth continued, his voice still devoid of emotion. "He likes to live for the moment. Likes his women."_

_An uncomfortable silence fell between them as Amy felt a horrible weight seem to hit her stomach. Everything that she was seeing in Homicide was making her feel like throwing up and running away back to Mt. Thomas. It was only her conviction to erase PJ Hasham from her heart and mind that was keeping her there. Finally, the words tumbled forth from her lips before she was able to stop them. "He's bent, Garth," she whispered, the lump becoming more pronounced in her throat. "I went out on a job with him today and he thumped an innocent man until he got a confession. The guy was only saying what Lloyd Johnson wanted to hear and…and he thumped him and charged him and I'll bet my life that that man didn't do anything wrong…"_

"_Lloyd Johnson is a good cop," Garth interrupted, his voice almost robotic and stiff. "He has a great solve rate. He's a good man."_

"_But he's bent, Garth," Amy pleaded, her voice breaking as she found herself close to tears. "He's bent, he's…"_

_Garth finally seemed to come to life as he removed the pen from his mouth and turned to glare at Amy with a frosty stare that made her blood run cold. He'd never looked at her like that before and it scared her almost as much as Lloyd Johnson did. "Just keep your stupid fucking mouth shut for once!" he snapped, his voice bringing hot tears of fear to Amy's eyes. "You're not in fucking Mt. Thomas, so just keep your fucking head down and your fucking mouth shut!"_

_His unusually aggressive tone and his loud swearing instantly put Amy off. She rose to her feet, nodding to herself as she turned and walked away, each footstep numb and shaky. She got the unpleasant sense that she was alone here. If she'd run into something like this in Mt. Thomas, then she would have had all the support in the world, or from PJ, at least. Yet here, all she had was Garth shouting and swearing at her, Lisa talking cryptically about how she shouldn't have come and Lloyd Johnson near raping her in the tea room. She was completely on her own in Homicide and she'd barely been there for a single day._

_But her friend is nowhere to be seen_

_Now she walks through her sunken dream_

Amy invited herself into the mess room without knocking, only to find PJ kneeling on the floor in front of a cupboard, obviously raiding it for whatever chocolate he could find. She approached him, biting her bottom lip nervously as she regarded him. "What are you doing?" she asked her fiancé, her eyes brimming with old fears that she thought she'd left behind when she returned to Mt. Thomas in November last year.

PJ looked up over his shoulder to her, offering Amy a weak attempt at a smile. "I think Dash has nicked off with the last of the chocolate bikkies," he explained, chuckling slightly. "I'm trying to see if there's anything other than arrowroots left in this whole place."

"You could try Mark," she suggested, "he's always flogging chocolate of some kind for Freya's pony club."

He nodded thoughtfully, unable to tear his mind away from the fear in Amy's voice. He climbed to his feet, reaching out to rub Amy's shoulder, only to find that she flinched away under his touch. He felt a desperate panic rise within him at Amy's entire demeanour. Her eyes conveyed a kind of terror that he hadn't seen in her for a long time, while her face was unnaturally pale. However, it was the way she had jumped away from him that frightened him the most. She hadn't flinched under his touch in so long that he'd really begun to think that the abuse was behind them for good. "God, Amy," he whispered, as hot and painful tears of concern began to well in his worried eyes. "What's happened? What the hell's wrong?"

She looked up to PJ, her voice almost being lost in her shaky, shallow gasps as she spoke. "Lloyd Johnson," she managed, as the tears began to flow anew. "Lloyd Johnson killed Garth Henderson and it's all my bloody fault."


	78. Ep 16: The Idealist Pt4

**Part 4**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Wreck of the Day" _by Anna Nalick.

_Amy stood alone in the tea room, stirring a copious amount of sugar into her coffee with one hand while she massaged the bridge of her nose with the other. In just one month, her life had gone from being the closest to perfect it had been since she was a young child to being barely worth living. She had gone from having people that she would have dared to call friends to having nothing – in fact, Lisa Craig was the closest thing she had to anyone these days. But even she didn't seem to talk to her much, instead preferring to keep a close eye on Amy while refusing to even let Lloyd Johnson's name come up in conversation._

_She'd long worked out what was going on. Lloyd Johnson was so corrupt that he almost made Andrew Reid look as though he was straight down the line. Garth Henderson knew what was going on and was distancing himself from her while he sang Lloyd's praises. And Lisa Craig knew what was going on too, however chose to keep a close watch on Amy to make sure she didn't stick her head out into the firing line._

_She'd paid dearly for her determination to cut PJ and Mt. Thomas from her life. Over the last month, Lloyd Johnson had continued to drag her out on his jobs, constantly using physical intimidation to get the results he wanted and constantly making sure that Amy saw every second of it. Then, just to keep her frightened and submissive, he'd corner her somewhere seclusive and nearly rape her again. He was getting cockier by the day, now touching her inappropriately even when he hadn't just been beating an innocent civilian into a confession. She knew what he was doing – he was using the threat of rape to keep her quiet about the corruption in Homicide. And it was working._

_Her stomach gave an awful lurch as the door opened and familiar footsteps hit the tiles of the tea room floor. It was him, back for a little more fun with his latest play toy. Threatening to sexually assault her had stopped being a method of keeping her quiet and had now become simply a pleasant past time for Lloyd Johnson. All she could do was keep her eyes closed tightly and wait him out. She couldn't fight him and it hardly seemed worth the effort anyway when he was going to walk away before it went too far._

_She closed her eyes tightly as Lloyd crossed the room to her, grabbing her roughly and throwing her up against the bench as he had so many times before. However, this time, he didn't seem content to simply touch. She could feel him tugging at her gun belt, pulling it free of her hips and throwing it to the floor before turning his attention to her pants._

_Her eyes snapped open as a horrifying thought struck her hard. Lloyd Johnson was really going to do it this time. He was going to hurt her in the worst way imaginable. She couldn't just let him do it, she had to fight…but he was still too strong. His uncomfortably tight grip kept her wrists pressed hard against the side of the bench, while he used his free hand to pull her pants free, leaving her wearing precious more than her underwear._

_She cast her gaze around the tea room, desperately searching for some route of escape. Her gun belt couldn't have been more than half a metre away. She could probably kick it over with her foot and then, maybe, if she could just get one hand free…but it was of no use. His grip was too strong – so strong that she was certain it was cutting off the circulation to her hands, in fact – and he could draw his own weapon in half the time she needed to get hers. _

_She tried to raise her right leg in a last-ditch effort to kick herself free, only to find that Lloyd brought his knee uncomfortably against her legs, bruising her knees and sending a jolt of pain through her body. Hot tears pricked up in her eyes as she realised that there was nothing more she could do. She couldn't scream or even try to alert someone to what was going on. If she even tried, she was certain she'd get a bullet for her trouble. He was going to get his way, he was going to rape her…she would have given anything to be back in Mt. Thomas right now, back in the safety of PJ's company…_

"_Get your filthy little hands off her, you bastard!"_

_Amy suddenly found herself thrown to the ground as Lloyd pushed her away. She remained motionless on the floor for several seconds before glancing up over her shoulder at what exactly it had been that had saved her. Lloyd Johnson was standing, glaring hard at a woman standing in the doorway, her expression one of disgust and fear. "Lisa Craig," Amy whispered, her tone grateful, yet exhausted at the same time._

_Lisa had crossed the room to Amy in seconds, helping the younger woman to shaking and aching legs. The older detective checked her over, wrapping a protective arm around Amy's shoulders. "Are you okay?" she asked, noticing the sore redness of Amy's knees where Lloyd Johnson had hit them._

_Amy nodded numbly, her brain not processing anything around her at all. She watched through teary eyes as Lloyd Johnson bent down, picking up Amy's pants and gun belt and tossing them over to Lisa._

_He shot Lisa a threatening glare as he turned to leave, his eyes cold and his voice malicious. "You're going to pay for that, you fucking bitch," he mumbled, slamming the door behind him as Lisa tried to force his words from her mind and help Amy get dressed._

PJ pulled up his chair at the side of Amy's desk as she sat down meekly in hers; staring down into her hands as though she couldn't bear to meet his gaze. He couldn't quite find the words to say to Amy, even though the questions were jumping over one another in his mind. The name Lloyd Johnson sounded vaguely familiar to him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why. Then again, he had been around in the job for so long that almost any name could sound familiar if he thought about it for long enough.

His heart was almost physically breaking in his chest at the pure fear that registered in Amy's face. She had been frightened many times, but he had rarely seen such terror in her eyes. She shook and trembled so violently before his gaze that it was starting to make him feel scared too, even if he didn't know who this Lloyd Johnson was supposed to be.

Garth had to know who Lloyd Johnson was if Amy was to consider him a suspect, PJ realised numbly. And the common link between Amy and Garth was those two and a half years Amy had spent in Homicide after the night she had run away from Mt. Thomas. He stared at her, trying not to let his own fear come out in his voice. "This Lloyd Johnson guy…" he began, pausing thoughtfully for a long moment, "…he's got something to do with Homicide, doesn't he?"

Amy suddenly looked up, shooting PJ a defensive glare. Her heart raced in her chest as she met his gaze, her cold expression instantly beginning to weaken and wane. She nodded slowly, wringing her hands together in her lap as she glanced down to them briefly. If she thought about it too much, she could almost swear she could still see the marks that Lloyd's iron grip had left behind. "Yeah," she replied, her voice barely audible as the familiar lump began to swell in her throat and make her feel sick. "He was our boss in Homicide when I was first working there…"

"What did he do to you?" PJ whispered, his voice soft and concerned as he reached out, finally daring to take Amy's hand in his. Much to his relief, she didn't flinch away again as she had just minutes ago in the mess room. He felt a familiar fiery anger rise within him at the thought of someone hurting his beautiful fiancée, his Amy. He could feel it deep inside – this Lloyd Johnson had done something truly horrible and unforgivable to the woman he cared for more than anything in the world.

"He was bent," Amy told him, her voice becoming almost devoid of emotion as she spoke. "He used to beat innocent people into confessing to murders they'd never committed; sometimes they even needed a hospital visit after he was done with them. He thought I was…I was an idealist who needed to learn how things really worked, so he always dragged me along and made me watch. Then, just to make sure I kept my mouth shut, he used to…he used to…" She looked away from PJ for a long moment, biting her bottom lip in frustration as she desperately tried to find the right words to describe what Lloyd Johnson used to do to her. "…He used to touch me…"

The anger that passed through PJ's face was unmistakable. He looked away, shaking his head and giving an outraged mumble under his breath. Amy could tell that he was close to doing something stupid. PJ Hasham wasn't the kind of man who lost his temper often, but he could come pretty damn close when it came to people hurting his loved ones.

She squeezed his hand tightly, hoping to get his attention again. "I kept quiet about it…at first," she continued, causing PJ to look back to her with tears of silent pain in his eyes. "Lloyd Johnson used sex as a weapon and…and no one wanted to know about it. They'd all long learnt that, if you wanted to keep your neck unbroken, you just kept your head down and just let him have his way. Or you joined in. It was either be corrupt or stay out of the way. Anyway, Lloyd Johnson was a big man, strong…anyone who interfered ran the risk of ending up in a worse condition than his supposed crims."

PJ nodded silently, squeezing Amy's hand back not only to comfort her, but to comfort himself. The more he thought about what Amy was saying, the more disgusted and ashamed he was of himself. As far as he was concerned, it was his fault. If he'd just stopped thinking with his heart and started thinking with his head for just a few seconds that night all those years ago, Amy would never have accepted that job in Homicide and never would have ended up with Lloyd Johnson.

"But then…something happened…something I couldn't ignore," Amy continued, her voice breaking up worse than ever before as she continued to drift back to a place she had hoped she'd left behind. "He…he…he killed the one person in that place who seemed to give a damn about what I was getting myself into."

_Amy slowly pushed herself up as she awoke to the unmovable musty smell of her Melbourne apartment. She ran a hand back through her hair as she glanced over her right shoulder to the old alarm clock sitting on her bedside table, the time glowing bright red in the dark. It was barely five in the morning, barely light out. She still had a couple of hours to sleep, if only sleep were possible._

_She flopped back into her starchy pillows, pulling the blankets up to her neck as she stared up blindly to the darkened ceiling, trying to block out the constant noise of sirens and car horns on the street beyond. She'd been up and down all night, barely able to stay asleep for longer than half an hour. It wasn't just the feelings of helplessness and worthlessness that Lloyd Johnson's attempt to rape her had brought on, or the constant stabbing pain from her agonising and bruised knees, but it was Lloyd's last words to Lisa. When he'd sworn at her and vowed to make her pay for stopping him before he managed to pull her underwear down with one hand._

_She had been in the country for way too long. She couldn't fit back into the city she had once called home with detectives she once would have dreamed for just a glimpse of. She'd seen the real face of Homicide and it was something that repulsed her. If this was the big time, then she preferred obscurity in her cosy little backwater. Despite all the pain that PJ's one word had caused, she would have given anything to have him there with her, even just to talk to. He had an amazing way of making her feel better and she admired his calm intelligence. He would have known what to do. If only he wasn't so far away._

_Desperately close to a coffin of hope_

_I'd cheat destiny just to be near you_

_A sudden knock at the door to her apartment startled her back to sitting as she pulled the blankets tighter around her slender frame. She waited, tossing up whether or not answering the door was worth the effort of getting up. She'd never been lazy, but these days, she seemed to have none of her previous energy, none of her previous passion. Just a feeling that she was trapped in something that she would never escape from._

_She waited in the darkness, biting her bottom lip nervously before a booming voice called out to her, making her feel even more frightened than she had been before._

"_Oi, Foxy!" Lloyd Johnson's voice called from beyond the door of her apartment. "Rise and shine, it's morning and we've got another murder to solve."_

"_This isn't morning," Amy mumbled to herself as she rolled her eyes. "Morning is what's happening in New Zealand right now."_

_She groaned inwardly as she flopped back into her pillows, closing her eyes tightly in dread of what was to come. Lloyd Johnson's voice had come to bring with it a wave of unpleasant expectation and terror and five in the morning at her apartment was no different. She finally dragged herself out of bed, barely thinking to grab her dressing gown – if nothing else, it was another layer for Lloyd to have to rip off her if he wanted another go at her – before she opened the door, exposing her boss standing in the corridor, wearing one of his finest suits._

"_You look quite sexy in Elmo pyjamas, Foxy," Lloyd remarked, earning the best cold death glare Amy could manage for his troubles as she pulled her dressing gown tighter around her body. He grinned smugly at Amy as he looked her up and down. "Get dressed and meet me down in the car park. You're going to want to see this…"_

_Amy slammed the door in Lloyd Johnson's face, letting her forehead come to rest on the solid wood. The prospect of going out on another case with Lloyd Johnson made her feel sick to her stomach and her throbbing knees protested at the thought of having to walk down all those stairs to the ground, but she had to get dressed. Like with everything she'd encountered since her arrival in Homicide, she simply didn't have a choice.

* * *

_

_Her whole body seemed to seize up on her as she stared at the congregation of police officers standing in the small alleyway not far from the Homicide building, so much so that she didn't bother to move away for the umpteenth time from Lloyd Johnson's hand that rested on her knee. Amy felt her heart begin to pound faster in her chest as she regarded the scene before her. Any number of police cars were parked at odd angles on the street nearby, along with a single ambulance. Her month in Homicide had been more than enough to teach her that normal cases didn't require this many officers. Only mass murders and the death of one of their own…_

_Amy suddenly found herself wanting to throw up on the street as she climbed out of Lloyd's car. What had Lloyd said last night about making Lisa Craig pay for interrupting him before he'd had a chance to rape her in the tea room? She cast Lloyd a furtive glance, only to find herself disgusted at his cocky grin. But surely not…he was capable of assault and rape, but surely not murder…_

_She jogged over to the gathering, biting her bottom lip as she pushed her way through the wall of officers, only to find herself staring at a sight she had never wanted to see. Lisa Craig was lying on the ground, no less than three bullet holes in her chest and a number of black bruises on her face and arms._

"_You bastard," she grumbled, glancing back over her shoulder to see Lloyd now leaning back against his car, his arms crossed against his chest and a contented grin plastered across his face. Their eyes met for a fleeting second and Amy knew exactly what had happened. He'd killed her._


	79. Ep 16: The Idealist Pt5

**Part 5**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Following My Own Tracks" _by The Whitlams and _"Never Gonna Leave Your Side" _by Daniel Beddingfield.

_Amy paced the tea room, reluctant to stop moving just in case the tears began to fall. She couldn't stop, not after this. Lloyd Johnson had just murdered Lisa Craig in cold blood in petty revenge for not being able to rape Amy last night and was now sitting in the interview room, lying like a pro while his corrupt cohorts ran around like headless chooks trying to close ranks and cover his arse. They'd probably come up with some bullshit story about a fly-by shooting that never happened and would never be solved._

_The throbbing in her knees and her overwhelming tiredness didn't bother her anymore. Nothing did, other than the unbearable guilt of what had happened. Lisa Craig - the woman who had taken her in when she was just a sixteen year old girl with nothing left in the world other than what Sally Maguire had hurriedly packed in a suitcase – was dead because she didn't have the sense to just keep her head down. She didn't deserve to still be living when Lisa Craig was dead. Although she was beginning to wonder if she would be living for much longer, now that there was nobody willing to speak up to stop him. _

_So frightened she was that she very nearly leapt out of the tea room window when she heard the sound of the door knob being twisted. She quickly tried to regain her composure as she turned to stare at the door with teary emerald eyes, suddenly very glad she'd thought to stick a chair up against the door. She froze, using a shaky hand to comb hair back from her eyes as she debated what to do, until she heard the person on the other side of the door speak. "Amy? It's Garth…are you in there?"_

_She dashed across the room, pushing the chair aside and almost dragging Garth inside before closing the door again and shoving the chair back up against it. Garth watched Amy as she desperately tried to make the tea room impenetrable, nervous tears shining on her cheeks. "Christ, Amy, you're a nervous wreck!"_

"_Do you fucking blame me?!" she snapped, her tone almost reminiscent of the one Garth had used against her a month ago when he had warned her to keep her mouth shut. He could tell that Amy was at breaking point, she had never been much for swearing, or at least, using the f-word against someone as she just had. "He's killed her! He's nearly raped me just about every day for the last fucking month and now he's killed her!"_

"_What?!" Garth exclaimed, reaching out to grab Amy's wrist to stop her from pacing. His eyes were widened in horror. "Raped? Why the hell didn't you tell me?"_

"_I tried!" Amy replied, a fresh wave of hot tears streaming down her cheeks. "Don't you think I bloody tried?! When I first got here, I tried telling you what he had done and all you said was to keep my stupid fucking mouth shut!"_

_Horror and shame seemed to pass through Garth's face as he stared at her for a long moment, before he finally plonked himself down on one of the remaining tea room chairs. "Shit," he mumbled, burying his face in his hands. "I just didn't want you saying too loudly that he was bent…I didn't want him going after you…I didn't realise that he was sexually harassing you…"_

_Amy closed her eyes as she slumped back against the bench, sliding down to the floor and drawing her knees up close to her chest. It all felt like too much. She'd screwed up massively and now there seemed to be no way out. No way out but…_

"_ESD," she whispered, suddenly breaking the awkward silence._

_Garth lowered his hands, staring at her with wide eyes. "ESD?" he demanded in a hiss. "Are you bloody mad?"_

"_I've been taking notes," she explained, crawling across the floor so that she and Garth were close enough for them to talk in soft whispers. "Everything Lloyd Johnson has said and done that wasn't by the book over the last month has been noted down…I'm doing what I should have done a long time ago…I should have gone to ESD in the first place…maybe Lisa wouldn't be dead if I had…"_

"_Yeah, and you probably would have gotten a bullet to the back of the head long ago if you had!" Garth pointed out, raising his voice just a little too much. "For Christ's sake, Amy…ESD…"_

_She rose to her feet, staring at him with renewed conviction in her eyes. "If I don't report him, then he's going to come in here later and throw me up against that bloody bench and finally do what he's been threatening to do for the last month. He managed to get down to my underwear last night, now Lisa Craig isn't here to stop him, he might finally get to go the whole way...There's no way out, Garth. It's just…it's just one big bloody cycle that keeps going around and around and won't stop until I make it stop. You're either with me or against me; it's your choice…"_

_Garth leapt to his feet, reaching out and closing his hand around her wrist, silencing her instantly. "Okay, okay," he replied, "I'm with you. But you can't bloody do it today…he'll realise that you've left early and he'll probably come after you with his gun." He paused, desperately searching for something to say as Amy nodded in reluctant agreement. "Tomorrow," he promised quietly. "I'll meet you at your place in the morning and we'll bring him down. Promise."_

Amy remained sitting at her desk in the CI office while PJ watched from over Nick and Dash's shoulders as they scanned the Victoria Police network for any information about Lloyd Johnson. She knew that most of her colleagues thought it was a long shot. Everyone except PJ, really. He'd believed her, but then again, he always did. And, aside from anything else, she got the feeling that PJ was feeling guilty about what had happened on that night over three years ago, the one word that had driven her away and into the nightmare of Melbourne Homicide.

She closed her eyes, silently praying that she was wrong. She had fought all day to prove that Garth hadn't taken his own life, yet now she had found a possible killer, she wished for nothing more than to be mistaken. If Lloyd Johnson was out of prison and had reached St. Davids and managed to kill Garth, then it was fairly obvious to her where he'd be coming next. She was his target and she had been ever since he'd labelled her as an idealist.

After several minutes of sitting alone in the office, PJ returned, his expression solemn and mimicked on the faces of Nick and Dash just behind him. He silently nodded, his own eyes clouded with tears of concern and what Amy recognised was the fear of losing another fiancée. "He escaped last month," he whispered hoarsely. "Lloyd Johnson is on the run."

_Amy stood alone in her apartment, running her hands back through her hair and finding herself unable to remain still for longer than half a second. She'd survived that day without another attack from Lloyd Johnson, but she knew that he was going to do it again if she gave him half a chance. He kept shooting her smug glances that spoke volumes to her and only reaffirmed her decision to bring him down._

_But no matter what she did, she simply couldn't calm her rattled nerves. Everything was sending her into a wild panic, from the neighbour's two month old baby's cries to the sounds of the late-night movie on Channel Seven. She'd locked the window and pulled the blind, stuffed a towel at the crack at the bottom of her door and switched off the television, but nothing seemed to work._

_She suddenly found herself turning to stare at the bundle of notes sitting on her bedside table. The little bundle of information that could bring Lloyd Johnson down for good and finally set her free again. But it wasn't safe there. If Lloyd Johnson came to her apartment and came after her, he'd find the notes too easily and they'd be destroyed long before Garth would arrive in the morning. The notes had to be somewhere safe; somewhere that Lloyd Johnson wouldn't think to look. Whatever happened to her, Lloyd Johnson had to be brought down._

_She bundled the notes up into her arms and quickly stuffed them under her bed, only to immediately change her mind and stuff them in her suitcase instead. She hid and then moved the notes another five times until eventually she remembered the unpacked box in her cupboard. She hadn't really bothered unpacking most of her belongings when she'd arrived in Melbourne – there hadn't been much point really. And things had gone downhill so fast that unpacking had become the least of her concerns. Lloyd Johnson would never know about the box of belongings, the notes had to be safe there._

_Amy yanked the cupboard door open, sending several clouds of dust rising into the air. She hadn't opened it in weeks, really. The several other outfits hanging up had been untouched as she had cycled through the same three suits. The dust that had gathered was almost choking, but she had bigger things to worry about. She reached inside and dragged the large cardboard box out, quickly beginning to rip the packing tape off it and toss it to the floor with uncharacteristic carelessness._

_When she eventually did get the box open, she found herself staring down at an old photograph. It was one that had been taken at Ben Stewart's farewell drinks almost a year ago, when they had all gathered at the pub. She scanned over the faces of her old colleagues; her mind drifting back to what was undeniably a simpler time. Back before Lloyd Johnson and the tea room attacks, back before Melbourne Homicide and definitely before the fiasco with PJ…_

"_PJ…" Amy whispered, her gaze falling upon his face. She traced his cheekbone with her thumb, her heart giving a heavy pang in her chest. With all the strain of Homicide, she'd almost forgotten why she'd ever left Mt. Thomas and the powerful friendship she and PJ had shared. They had been the dynamic duo, they could handle anything. Well, anything other than that one little word…_

_She suddenly found herself leaping over her bed to the phone, dialling the number for the Mt. Thomas rectory where Tom Croydon lived. If something happened to her, then she couldn't let PJ find out from the newspaper or, worse, town gossip. She couldn't let what she felt deep inside go unsaid, no matter how much she had wanted to avoid PJ. But she still couldn't bear hearing his voice. No…using Tom as the messenger was a much better idea._

_She waited expectantly, twisting the phone cord around her index finger as she sat down on her bed. It took Tom a whole minute to answer the phone and when he did; his voice was precious more than a tired grumble. "Hello?" he answered, his voice instantly telling Amy that she had just woken her old boss up. "I don't know who you are, but don't you bloody know what the time is…"_

"_Boss," Amy croaked, her voice almost becoming lost in her throat as Tom's familiar voice met her ears. "It's…it's Amy."_

_Tom didn't need to ask who Amy was. A weak smile found its way to his lips as he thought back to his old detective. "Amy?" he asked, more in disbelief than anything else. "What…what's going on?"_

_Amy closed her eyes, savouring every single word Tom said. She would have given anything to be back under Tom Croydon's protective wing. She was a strong and independent woman, but the events of the last month had reduced her to little more than a shell of her former self and she knew it. "If…if anything happens to me…"_

"_What's going to happen to you?" Tom asked without thinking, suddenly sitting up a little straighter. "Amy…what's going on…"_

"_You have to tell PJ…"_

"_What do I have to tell PJ?" Tom demanded, his tone becoming more impatient. "What's going to happen to you? Why can't you tell him yourself? Amy…"_

_Amy closed her eyes tighter, no longer savouring Tom's voice. Now she was wishing she hadn't called, it was just too difficult. She finally just shook her head, forgetting momentarily that Tom couldn't see her. "Just…just forget it…forget I ever rang…"_

_She heard Tom begin to speak, but she slammed the phone down hard before he got a chance to make himself heard. Calling Tom had been a bad idea and in hindsight, she wasn't sure what had possessed her to do it in the first place. But it had been a distraction, a way to pass a good fifteen minutes of the long night. Now she had to wait the night out, until Garth showed up in the morning to help her break free of Lloyd Johnson._

_And as she laid back on her bed, she would have given anything to have PJ's arms around her just one more time to get her through as he had that one night a month ago._

_Just when I think that I've found level ground_

_I turn around and destroy all of the life I've found_

Amy stood alone in the station mess room, messaging her temples as she leant back against the darkened window. It was late and most normal people would be rugged up in bed asleep, but not her. It had been partly at PJ's insistence – he wanted her at the station where it would be a lot harder for Lloyd Johnson to have a go at her if he wanted to. It was reasonable logic and she didn't blame him for being worried. He'd lost both Maggie Doyle and Jo Parrish shortly after becoming engaged and she couldn't even begin to contemplate how agonising it must be for him to see his third fiancée in life-threatening danger.

She let out a heavy sigh, hanging her head and biting her bottom lip. She couldn't get past the guilt of what she'd done. If she'd only known better and done what Garth had told her and kept her mouth shut, then Lisa wouldn't have had to stop Lloyd Johnson from doing anything and if she hadn't dragged Garth into everything by telling him that he was either on her side or Lloyd's side…she cringed at the thought of what she'd done. They were both dead because of her.

Suddenly, she felt a strong, yet familiar grip close around her shoulders. She felt herself being thrown against the table, the edge winding her instantly. She groaned as she desperately tried to claw her way back up to standing, every part of her body seeming to ache in pain.

The hands closed around her shoulders again, spinning her around so that she found herself face to face with her attacker. "Lloyd Johnson," she gasped, her words almost seeming to echo through the empty mess room, lingering in the air as Lloyd's familiar smug grin spread across his face. His grip on her tightened briefly, before he threw her to the floor so hard that Amy felt something in her wrist snap loudly as she tried to stop herself from falling.

She hit the floor hard as her left wrist gave way beneath her, the stabbing pain bringing hot tears to her eyes. She'd never had a broken bone before, but even she could tell that she had broken her wrist in the fall. She rolled over onto her side, gripping at her left wrist with her right hand to try to ease the pain somehow. She groaned, closing her eyes tightly as the tears spilled over onto her cheeks.

She didn't open her eyes until she realised that Lloyd had now busied himself with her gun belt. Absolute horror rushed through her body as she watched him pulling at the clasp of her holster, his grin becoming increasingly manic as he finally pulled her gun free. Her heart gave a heavy lurch in her chest at the sight. She was lying on the floor with a broken wrist, while Lloyd Johnson leaned over her with her gun in his hands.

Her instincts kicked in. She barely managed to bring her leg up to knee Lloyd in the stomach, causing him to roll off her, cursing and groaning in pain. She didn't have long, but she had a chance to get away. Still gripping her left wrist, she jumped to her feet and took off for the CI office, suddenly remembering PJ was still in the station and oblivious to what danger they were in.

"PJ!" she moaned, pain creeping into her voice as she staggered into the CI office, only to be met by PJ in the doorway. He grabbed her as she near collapsed into his arms, her face pale and her cheeks tear-stained.

He looked her over, moving her over to his seat to let her sit down. "Shit, Amy," he began, shaking his head in disbelief, "what the hell happened…"

She began to gasp as she heard heavy footsteps heading for their office. "It's Lloyd Johnson," she managed, gripping PJ's shirt tightly with her good hand. "He's gotten into the station…he's got my gun…he's coming this way…"

"Fucking bitch!"

PJ's eyes widened at the swearing and he instinctively pushed Amy behind his back as a formidable man burst into their office, eyes glinting and his grin broadening. He waved Amy's service revolver across the office as Amy crept out from behind PJ's back. PJ wasn't getting himself shot for her, she wouldn't allow it. No one else was going to die for her.

Lloyd cocked the weapon, aiming it squarely and Amy. She stared at Lloyd as coldly as she could manage to, before suddenly, and in a blur she would struggle to remember in times to come, he fired.

Amy could feel somebody shove her roughly to the ground and she was barely able to shelter her wrist in the fall. As she hit the floor, she heard the gunshot and tried to push herself up as best she could. Lloyd Johnson was still standing there, looking proud of himself, but PJ was no longer on his feet.

Horror like none she had ever known before passed across her face as she caught sight of him lying on his side, his face contorted in pain as he gripped at his abdomen. She managed to clamber over to him, placing her good hand over his in an attempt to stop the blood that pumped from the gunshot wound. She rose her bad arm up to PJ, lightly letting her fingertips graze PJ's forehead. Her touch seemed to soothe him slightly, but not by much.

She glared up at Lloyd Johnson, surprised to find herself unafraid of him. She had every reason to be terrified, yet he didn't scare her. Not anymore.

"Oi, is anyone there? Zoe cooked too much lasagne tonight and I thought I'd bring it in for you guys…just don't blame me when you all get food poison…shit!"

Amy turned her gaze to the direction of the voice, only to find Nick Schultz standing in the doorway of the CI office. Or, at least, it was someone who looked like Nick Schultz, she couldn't tell with the tears that were misting up her eyes and flowing down her cheeks. "Nick!" she cried, her voice wobbling and high-pitched. Her heart began to physically ache in her chest as PJ let out a loud scream of pain from where he lay on the floor.

Nick looked across the scene, not quite sure where to start. He finally decided to start with Lloyd Johnson, who was beginning to look a little edgy. Nick leapt at him, tossing Zoe's lasagne aside as he attempted to tackle the man to the floor. He was a little slow, however, as Lloyd Johnson managed to tear out towards the back entrance before Nick could get his hands on him.

Without a second thought, Nick was kneeling next to Amy, gently rubbing his old mate's shoulder. "It'll be right, mate, you'll see…" Nick told PJ, his wobbling nearly as much as Amy's, although not as close to hysterics. He tried to remain strong as he rose to his feet, promising to call an ambulance, but his eyes told the true story.

Amy clutched PJ as close to her as she could as his breathing began to slow slightly and he began to become limp in her arms. A fear the likes of which she had never known before welled deep within her, making her tremble as she bent down to kiss his forehead tenderly, still stroking his forehead softly. "Stay with me, Peej, please just stay with me," she told him, her voice scarcely louder than a whisper. "I can't lose you, I can't…I can't lose you…stay with me, Peej, just stay with me…"

And as Amy sobbed desperately as she clung to PJ as tightly as she could and Nick stood nearby, fighting back his own tears as he called for an ambulance, PJ could feel his eyelids becoming heavy and the pain drifting away as everything faded to a painless black.

_I won't let you go_

'_Cause when I'm lying in your arms_

_I know I'm home_


	80. Ep 17: The Reason Pt1

**Episode 17: "The Reason"**

**Summary: **_As PJ teeters dangerously between life and death, the Heelers find themselves drawn into a race against time to find Lloyd Johnson before he strikes again. While Zoe and Sophie discover their professional differences, Amy and Nick discover that they aren't as different as they'd thought._

**Part 1**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Beautiful Girl" _by INXS and _"I'll Stay With You" _by Beth Hart.

The dim night lighting of the Mt. Thomas hospital cast long shadows as Amy slowly made her way along the corridor, each footstep numb and unfeeling as her mind processed precious more than white fuzz. Her now plastered wrist didn't trouble her anymore. Its dull throbbing seemed to have little meaning or significance in the wake of what had happened. The images remained clearly in her vision, as though burned into her eyes in those few agonising minutes before the ambulance had arrived with its whirling sirens.

The antiseptic silence was almost deafening as she found herself suddenly face to face with Nick Schultz. He seemed so much smaller now than he had just half an hour ago, less of a giant and more of an overgrown child. He wore an expression of helplessness on his face that was mirror in Amy's own, the hopelessness and guilt of what they had just both witnessed. Yet, despite their shared feelings of fear and complete uselessness, there was nothing to say. No words to comfort one another, not even a half-hearted assurance. Just the troubled silence that hung between them like a lead weight.

Finally, he spoke, his voice lacking every bit of the bravado and strength that she had known him for. "Mark was here a little earlier, he got my statement. He said that they shouldn't need to speak to you about it just yet." He let his words hang in the eerie silence for a long moment, before feeling the urge to continue, even if just to make some noise. "He's getting everyone possible out there; Lloyd Johnson isn't going to stand a snowflake's chance in hell…"

Amy shook her head, closing her eyes lightly as she tried to block Nick's assurances from her mind. The more he spoke about Lloyd Johnson, even if it was about how easily they'd find him, the more she thought about him herself and it was scaring her. But she couldn't show that she was afraid. Show her emotions didn't feel so dangerous when PJ was there, but he wasn't. She was alone again and she couldn't allow herself to become so vulnerable as to let the fear take control. She turned away from him, pressing her lips together tightly in an attempt to stop herself from losing her temper. It had been so long since she'd lost it with a colleague – PJ's influence, she was sure. With him there, making her feel inherently safe, she didn't need her temperamental defence mechanism. But he wasn't there and it was taking everything she had to keep herself in check.

_She's so scared_

_So very frightened_

_Anything could happen_

_Right here tonight_

Nick continued on, unabated. "He couldn't have gotten far, he had blood on his clothes and he had a gun…and once SOG gets here, he's gone for sure. We don't let bastards who shot coppers get away, especially not corrupt little dickheads like Lloyd…"

She didn't give him a chance to finish. She spun back to face him, her face contorted into a furious death glare. He didn't even have a chance to duck as she brought her hand hard against his face, leaving a bright red mark that lingered on his cheek where she had struck.

The sound seemed to echo throughout the hospital corridor as Amy backed away, her eyes suddenly wide with small tears at the sight of what she had done. Nick rose his hand to his cheek, wincing slightly in pain as he ran his fingertips along the mark. He chanced a glance at Amy, his eyes staring at her in confusion, yet a sort of understanding.

She didn't stick around to hear what Nick had to say about her actions – she stormed off down a corridor towards the bathrooms, her fingers pressed to her lips as every part of her protective shell shattered into tiny pieces around her and the tears began to flow anew.

* * *

It shouldn't have bothered him, Mark thought to himself as he surveyed the blood-splattered CI office, not even daring to let his mind wander to what the sight must have been for Amy and Nick. He'd been in the job for well over twenty years, probably closer to thirty, and he'd seen enough death for any normal person to stand. Yet the sight before him was making him feel queasy in a way that he hadn't since his days as a young Constable.

He'd had to leave Penny alone in bed again when he'd gotten the call from Nick, telling him what had happened. She'd rolled over, grumbling under her breath and looking completely dissatisfied with the situation, but her happiness was the least of his problems.

He'd noticed the change of mood as soon as he'd arrived at the station. It had reminded him instantly of the tone with Tom Croydon had been found dead, as though something had died within them all. He remembered fearing all those months ago that life simply couldn't go on without Tom, without the station's father. But it had – they had gotten on with their lives. Yet, something seemed different with PJ. Everyone knew PJ; everyone loved him in their own way. It was impossible not to, really. There was just something about PJ that you couldn't help but admire. If Tom Croydon was the station's father, then PJ was the station's soul and, without him, Mark shuddered to think of what would be left behind.

He finally turned back to his younger charges, suddenly feeling quite out of place as they stared back at him, each of their eyes filled with tears and conveying the same feelings that he felt deep inside. PJ wasn't just the station's soul; he was everyone's big brother. He embodied the spirit of the Victoria Police, of country policing and simply of friendship and love. He didn't get a chance to even begin to explain half of what was going on before Piper Morris burst into the police station, at least fifteen uniform officers in pursuit.

She looked over to him, meeting his gaze and, for the first time since their academy days, Mark felt them reach a wordless understanding. Their bond had never needed words, or, at least, it had never used to. But nearly thirty years could be a very long time and Mark knew that they'd grown apart.

Piper cleared her throat, the sound startling each of the Mt. Thomas officers out of their trances. "At approximately ten p.m. tonight, former Melbourne Homicide Detective Senior Sergeant Lloyd Johnson gained access to this police station and assaulted Senior Detective Amy Fox in the mess room. He then took possession of her weapon and proceeded to use it against Senior Detective Hasham in the CI office." As she spoke, she made small, sharp gestures, causing several gasps of horror mixed with indifference from the St. Davids officers when she indicated the CI office. "We will be searching every likely hiding place, while also maintaining constant patrols. Senior Constable McKinley and Constable O'Rourke will be coordinating the patrols, while all other officers will be involved in searches. Constable Peroni will be assisting several St. Davids officers in a comprehensive search of the National Park…"

"Inspector?" Dash piped up, distractedly brushing hair from her eyes and back behind her ear. She earned a silent, curious glare from Piper which seemed to prompt her to continue. "I think it would be better if I helped with the National Park search," she explained, her voice becoming increasingly unsteady as Piper continued to stare her down. "I grew up in Mt. Thomas and…and I know the park inside and out from when we used to play there…"

Piper seemed unimpressed by Dash's suggestion for a long moment, before finally nodding. "Fine," she replied, scribbling something down in her folder. "Senior Constable McKinley will be assisting with the National Park search, while Constable Peroni will coordinate patrols with Constable O'Rourke." She paused, apparently trying to the words. "I want all of you here to remember that Lloyd Johnson is armed and incredibly dangerous. He has killed before and we cannot afford to assume that he wouldn't kill again…"

"So no heroics," Mark interrupted, his tone sharp. It cut through Piper's words like a knife and immediately caused all of the officers to turn their eyes to him. Dash, Kelly and Joss in particular. Mark folded his arms across his chest as he surveyed his colleagues, finding himself quite unable to look away from his three younger officers. "We don't need anymore dead heroes."

Mark turned on his heel, storming into his office and slamming the door, hoping for just a few minutes of peace before heading out into the field to find Lloyd Johnson before he came back for a second go. His younger colleagues remained in the muster room, sharing furtive glances at each other while Piper began barking orders. They could all instinctively tell that Susie Raynor and her sacrifice were playing on Mark's mind.

* * *

Amy found herself biting her bottom lip nervously as she returned to the hospital corridor, wringing her hands in front of her stomach as her eyes fell upon Nick. He was standing over near a window, the moonlit darkness washing over him as he continued to rub his cheek distractedly, his eyes focused somewhere off the other end of the corridor. She stood, watching him with narrowed, tear-filled eyes, unable to quell the conclusion she had drawn about him shortly after he arrived in town. He was quite like her, in a way. They were both the walking wounded – people with great pain that they carried with them everyday. And, each in their own way, they'd found their salvation in PJ. Nick had found a best mate, someone who he could drink beer with and chat with and hang out with, while she had found someone who cared about her more than anything else in the world. Someone who understood every tiny piece of her and who she was. Perhaps better than she understood herself.

She finally dared to step forward, the sudden movement attracting Nick's attention. After several seconds of silence, she gestured slightly to his red cheek. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"Yeah," Nick mumbled with a nod, "I know you didn't."

Although Nick didn't expressly ask her for an explanation or a justification of her actions of any kind, she felt compelled to offer one. "I'm scared, Nick," she whispered, her voice hoarse and oddly high-pitched. Her tone was more reminiscent of a five-year-old rather than a woman of thirty-three. Thinking about the intense fear that was swirling around inside of her, mingling with the aching pain she couldn't extinguish, was making her eyes sting with the creation of new tears. She shrugged helplessly, unable to repress an overwhelming sob. "PJ…God…he…he always…makes me feel safe and cared for and wanted and…and…" She found her voice degenerating into uncontrollable sobs as she waved her hands wildly in the air, as though it might help make the words come or the tears stop flowing. But it didn't.

Nick nodded, Amy's heartfelt attempt to explain what she and PJ shared making his own tears spill over onto his cheeks. He couldn't stop the aching in his chest at the thought of losing PJ, his oldest mate, the one he used to eat pizzas and argue about the late night soccer with. The one who, despite all of their arguments and disagreements over the years, kept him sane whenever the memories of his lost wife and daughter got too much for one man to handle. They'd shared the best and the worst of life and that kind of mateship was something that didn't come around very often in a lifetime.

He opened his arms, enveloping Amy within them and letting her crumple against his chest. She sobbed desperately, clinging to his old checked shirt, almost becoming a dead weight in his arms. He held her tightly, finding himself comforted somewhat by Amy's presence. He tried to open his mouth to speak, but the words simply refused to come. So he closed it again, instead choosing to just let the closeness of their bodies and the warmth of the hug comfort them both.

_Close your eyes and I'll hold you here_

_It's alright if you're feelin' scared

* * *

_

Sophie took a step back from the operating table, drawing in a shaky breath as she tore her gaze away from the blood and gore in front of her. They had always been told not to connect with the patient; that it was too painful and too dangerous, but she couldn't restrain from looking at PJ's still face. It was almost colourless beneath the masks and tubes that barely kept him alive while she and Zoe tried to keep him clinging to life. She couldn't help the tears that formed in her eyes, clouding her vision slightly. She wanted nothing more than to be able to throw aside her surgical scrubs and step away, to take on the role of worried friend rather than life-saving surgeon, but she couldn't. As it was, it took all the restraint she had not to grab hold of his hand and hold it while Zoe worked.

"This would really be much easier if I had a second set of hands," Zoe prompted as she leant in closer to where she was working. Sophie's head snapped up and she swiftly returned to her post, gulping loudly as she looked over Zoe's work. "The bullet's ripped right through the liver," Zoe spat, apparently not quite able to distance herself from the situation either. It was clear that her mind was also threatening to wander elsewhere – in her case, to the man who had done this. "We can try to repair it, but…"

Sophie craned her neck, surveying the damage that Zoe was describing. It was quite extensive – a perfect example of how bodies were not designed to be shot at. "But a liver recession would be a more viable option," she finished, nodding more for her own benefit than her colleague's. "And we'll probably need to remove the gallbladder as well."

"I'd say so, yeah," Zoe agreed as she motioned to a nearby nurse to hand Sophie a swab. "And we still don't know where the hell this bullet is…they'd better find this bastard or else…"

But Sophie never got a chance to find out what Zoe's 'or else' was going to be. Zoe's voice was suddenly drowned out by a loud, rapid beeping from one of the nearby monitors. Alarm shot through their faces, neither of them quite able to believe what was going on.

After a second of stunned silence, Zoe finally spoke. "He's crashing!" she snapped, waving a gloved and blood-covered hand towards a machine against one of the theatre walls. The nurses around them quickly leapt into life, while Sophie stole another glance at PJ's almost lifeless face. She shook her head slightly, her eyes widening in disbelief.

"Don't you dare do this, PJ," she told him in a harsh whisper. "Don't you dare go and die on Amy now."


	81. Ep 17: The Reason Pt2

**Part 2**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Small Towns and Big Dreams" _by Paul Brandt and _"Favourite Year" _by the Dixie Chicks.

The night staff of the hospital bustled past as the two police officers sat with their backs against the wall, Amy resting her head on Nick's chest as her tears became silent. She found herself staring up at the cheap white analogue clock above a nearby landscape painting, unable to tear her eyes away from the slow-moving black hands. It felt as though that night was lasting forever, drawing itself out as though it understood just how much it was hurting her. There had been no news since they'd wheeled PJ away into surgery, bad or otherwise.

The tears she had shed into Nick's chest had taken away whatever strength it was she had left. She didn't fell as though she could even attempt to move away from where she sat in his warm, strong arms, still clutching at his shirt in what was her desperate attempt to hold onto something safe. She wasn't sure why, but Nick just made her feel inherently safe and secure and she appreciated that more than she'd ever be able to say to him.

She finally opened her mouth, testing out whether or not she still had the ability to speak. Her voice left her lips in wobbling, croaky syllables that almost seemed to echo in the antiseptic silence that hovered around them. "I never wanted to be this dependant on anyone again," she admitted, her voice suddenly stirring Nick from his stupor. He rose his head from his shoulder, using the hand that wasn't wrapped protectively around Amy to rub at his eyes to clear the tears that still lingered there. He gave a grumble in reply, which Amy took to be a prompt to continue. "But PJ just made me feel so…so…safe. He always seemed to know just what it was I need to hear; needed to feel…he showed me that there are other things to life than just solving crime and protecting myself from everyone. He showed me how precious life is and how kind people can be…he made me laugh."

"Yeah," Nick mumbled in agreement, tightening his grip on Amy slightly as she spoke. The more Amy spoke about PJ and how he made her feel, the more he felt like probing deeper, as though she were a mystery that he had to unravel. "I reckon he needs you just as much as you need him, though." He glanced down to Amy, only to find her staring up at him with a look that was clearly urging him to continue. "PJ Hasham is a bloody tough man, but he's nothing without…" He paused, his mind suddenly jumping to the conversation he and PJ had shared on Christmas Day last year, when PJ had shared his concerns about starting a relationship with Amy. Amy and her problems with love…it had played on his mind since PJ had told him, urging him on like a red flag to a bull.

Amy nodded, looking away as she used the fingertips of her plastered hand to brush at the tears that streamed silently down her cheeks. Nick watched her as her eyes became distant, focused somewhere down the corridor towards the operating theatre where her fiancé was lying, unconscious. He had to ask her, it was now or never. "You were abused as a child, weren't you?"

Nick's words ran through Amy's entire body, causing her heart to pound unnaturally fast in her chest and goose bumps to rise on her skin. Her eyes widened as she suddenly found the energy to pull away, staring at Nick as though he had just asked her if the sky was fluoro green. "No!" she lied, her voice little more than a hurried squeal that, she realised in hindsight, was probably a dead giveaway. "How dare you even…"

"Who was it?" Nick continued on, seemingly ignoring the fact that she had just vehemently denied his suggestion. He crawled a little closer to her, dropping his voice to a soft whisper. "Was it your father? Grandfather? Uncle? Older brother?"

She closed her eyes, hot tears threatening to run anew as the unbearable memories reared their ugly heads. Coping with the abuse wasn't so hard with PJ by her side, his soft, wise eyes gently probing while his silky touch and soothing voice calmed her and reassured her that all was well. But the safety that Nick had brought was quickly fading. "Okay, okay!" she snapped, finally giving in to his questions. She glanced around quickly, relieved somewhat by the lack of any staff hovering around. She leant in closer, barely able to meet Nick's eyes. "It was my uncle! He raped me nearly every night for four years…happy?!"

She somehow climbed to numb and weak legs, pacing away from Nick with her head lowered. He watched her as she stood, shoulders hunched and her fingers pressed against her lips. He felt a little guilty about prying now. It was one thing to suspect that Amy had been abused, but it was another thing entirely for her to admit it. It seemed to make everything make sense, though. Everything about the mystery of Amy Fox just seemed to slip into perfect order.

"I'm sorry," he whispered as he pushed himself to his feet. He approached her slowly, reaching out to rub her arm soothingly. She flinched ever so slight under his skin as she nervously brushed at her tears with a shaking hand.

"Did PJ tell you?" she snapped, her voice breaking in between silent sobs.

He shook his head, tightening his grip on Amy slightly. It was a protective grip, a firm, kind one that didn't make Amy feel intimidated. Yet, somehow, Nick frightened her like he never had before. The knowledge he now held over her was scary and it made her feel like an insecure young child. "PJ never told me anything," Nick replied, his voice soft and gentle. "He didn't have to. I've spent so much of my time in the job trying to protect abused kids from parents who never deserved to have them…I can almost pick it a mile away."

Amy felt a hot indignation rise within her at Nick's words. The way he spoke about the parents of abused children cut her deep, almost as though he had directly insulted her own. She spun to face him, shooting him a defensive glare. "My parents were the kindest, sweetest, nicest people you'd ever meet," she told him harshly, her voice unnaturally fast and hot-tempered. "They were the perfect parents…"

Nick gave a weak snort of laughter at this, which only seemed to infuriate Amy further. "You may well say that, but here's the thing – there's no such thing as the perfect parents. We all like to think we are, but we're not. Hell, I'm the first to admit that Zoe and I are pretty bloody far from being perfect parents to Trevor and Travis, but…well, if anyone laid a finger on them, I might just rip their bloody head off." He paused, watching as Amy's brow furrowed and her confusion at where exactly he was going deepened. He could tell that the mention of her parents was hurting her, though. A different kind of grief had sprung up in her eyes, sending a new wave of tears falling down her cheeks. He let his tone soften before he spoke again. "Did you parents know that your uncle was abusing you?" he asked, hoping desperately that his voice wasn't sounding accusing or cold.

She opened her mouth to argue, to vehemently deny that her parents would have ever let John get away with what he'd done, only to find that the anger didn't come. Instead, she felt herself overwhelmed by a feeling she hadn't felt in years – a desperate grief and a mournful longing for the safety and childhood she had only shortly known and, much to her despair and guilt, didn't remember. Choking sobs escaped from her body as she stared at Nick hard, watching his eyes widen in horror as she spoke. "They were killed in a car accident when I was eight."

* * *

Zoe lowered the defibrillator paddles, letting out the breath she had been holding for several minutes as the machines around her began to emit a regular, almost calming beeping. It was a sound she knew well after almost two decades in medicine and it was a sound that never ceased to calm her. It was a sound that told her that all was well…or, at least, well enough to stop panicking.

She handed the paddles back to one of the nurses, casting a glance over to Sophie, who had spent much of the last few minutes performing compressions. The pair couldn't hold back a mutual smile. They both had a personal interest in this and they both knew it. But it gave them something more to fight for. They weren't just saving any life – they were saving PJ's life, Amy's fiancé and Nick's best friend. They couldn't get much more motivation than that.

Wordlessly, they resumed working, neither really certain of what to say or even if anything needed to be said.

* * *

Dash climbed with ease to the top of the small crest, resting a hand against the bark of a nearby tree trunk as she waited for the far slower St. Davids crew trailing her to catch up. She tightened her grip on the torch in her free hand as the smallest of smiles found its way slowly to her cheeks. She knew this place, every little bit of it, even in the pitch-black darkness that surrounded them, broken only by the slim streams of light cast by their torches. She spent so many days and nights of her childhood playing here, hiding from her brothers when playing hide and seek and climbing almost every tree she could find in the hopes of making it higher than Alec. It was those moments, growing up in what was really more of a McKinley tribe than a family, that she treasured most. They were the moments she couldn't wait to share with Phoebe when she was old enough, the kind of life she hoped her daughter would one day get to live.

_The best things around that I have ever seen_

_Came from small towns and big dreams_

It was a silent night, broken only by the annoyed and tired grumbles from her St. Davids contemporaries. They annoyed her, more than anything. She didn't really have the patience for their complaints, not when one of her oldest friends was lying on the operating table, not when her daughter was probably crying about her mummy having to go out in the middle of the night and certainly not when a convicted killer could be hanging about, being warned off by her colleagues and their moaning.

She glanced back over her shoulder, unable to hide her frustration as they stopped, several of them flopping backwards onto the leaf litter to catch their breaths. She almost wished she'd gone with Kelly on patrol. Almost. Despite the reason why she was there and despite the moans of protest from the others, she was enjoying herself out here. The country was her territory and it always had been. And, she had long realised, always would be.

* * *

She had never thought that something like this could affect her this much, Kelly realised as she sat beside Joss in the patrol car, quite content for once to go back on her vow and let him drive. In all honesty, she couldn't see what the benefit of the patrols would be when she couldn't keep her mind on searching for longer than ten seconds. All she could think about was Amy and PJ.

She couldn't get Amy's confession about her unpleasant childhood out of her head. She and Amy had never shared a close friendship – she supposed that the age difference was to blame for that – but there had been a bit of a bond, which probably dated back to the day that Amy had chosen Kelly to help her on a case instead of Joss and told her that 'detectives don't dig'. But, now she knew about Amy's abusive past, she couldn't stop staring at her colleague whenever she got the chance. Amy was so strong, so capable, despite everything she'd been through.

Her knowledge of Amy's past only seemed to make PJ's shooting seem even more unfair. He was so close to her and so good for her and now he was paying the price for doing nothing more than loving a woman who deserved nothing less than the utmost devotion.

Kelly turned to Joss, who was focusing hard on the road ahead with narrowed eyes. He was obviously a million miles away as well, which she supposed was nothing unusual these days. The rape had changed both of them, whether they liked it or not.

The words suddenly tumbled forth from her lips, long before she realised that perhaps she should have stopped them. "I don't want to lose you, Joss," she told him softly, her voice almost being lost in the sound of the cold night air whipping past Joss' open window. He turned to stare at her as they pulled onto a straight stretch of road, his eyes wide and shining with a kind of hope she hadn't seen before. Perhaps it was the hope that, maybe, life could start getting back to some semblance of normal soon. "I love you more than anything and I never want to lose you."

He didn't reply to her comment straight away, instead choosing to slip her hand into his. The simple gesture brought a hint of a smile to Kelly's lips, the first that Joss had seen there in far too long. It was reassuring and gave him the confidence to speak. "I love you too," he confessed, his voice sounding oddly small in the confined darkness of the patrol car. "I remember back when we were still Probationary Constables," he reminisced, his eyes begin to sparkle with regret as his mind drifted back. "Remember how frustrated we used to get with Mark and Ben when they used to send us out on the crap jobs?"

She nodded, her own eyes mirroring his. "Like chasing stray elephants?" she asked him, quite unable to restrain a small giggle at the memory. "I still haven't forgiven you for making me check that elephant dung." A nostalgic silence fell between them as Joss nodded at the memory, a tiny hint of cheekiness creeping across his face. Kelly finally let out a heavy sigh, the mood instantly switching to one of longing and regret. "Don't you wish we could be like that again?" she queried, staring at him with misty tears forming in her eyes. "Don't you wish we could just go back to those days?"

Joss didn't answer her, instead choosing to remain fixed on the road ahead. The truth was he didn't trust himself to answer. He still loved Kelly, heart and soul, but he was afraid that if he began to remember how good life used to be, he might find himself lost in the memories and the dreams of what could have been. He would have said yes, because, the truth was, he would have given anything just for a hint of the days when anything was possible, when they were young and naïve and the world was at their feet.

_We were young and so inspired_

_We weren't the only ones who thought_

_We'd change the world

* * *

_

Zoe's hands suddenly seemed to freeze as she and Sophie stood over PJ, their eyes widening at the sight that greeted them. They had finally managed to perform the liver recession and gallbladder removal without too much trouble, but now they had a bigger problem. They'd finally found the bullet nestled close to PJ's spine. The sight sent a chill of panic through Zoe's body as she withdrew the medical instruments, sighing as she thought hard about what to do.

Sophie craned her neck to get a better look at the situation, only to shake her head solemnly. "We can't possibly try to remove that," she pointed out, trying to force some confidence into her voice. "It's way too close to the spinal cord, no surgeon in their right mind would even attempt to touch it."

"We're not leaving it there," Zoe told her, their eyes connecting as she spoke. "If we leave the bullet where it is, we run the risk of any number of infections from it or even the bullet moving to somewhere else in his body."

Sophie felt indignation rising within her at Zoe's words. For over three years, she had been the sole doctor and surgeon at the Mt. Thomas hospital and, as such, her word had generally been taken as gospel. She decided what to do and people typically followed her orders. She wasn't used to taking them and certainly not from a woman who had only been in town for a short amount of time. "If we remove the bullet," she reminded Zoe, her voice curt and cold, "we'll be risking causing serious spinal damage. He could end up in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. The bullet's just too close; he'd need a spinal cord specialist, at the least…"

"Look at where that bullet is," Zoe interrupted, waving a hand wildly towards PJ's abdomen. "It's probably already caused damage to the spinal cord and the surrounding nerves. He's probably already facing a wheelchair. I'm not comfortable leaving a dirty great bullet in his back to case more problems for him later."

"Well, I'm not comfortable with removing the bullet and possibly making PJ a paraplegic when he doesn't necessarily have to be!" Sophie snapped in reply, causing several of the nurses to stare at her hard.

The anaesthetist, who was sitting on a stool up near PJ's head, cleared his throat loudly, causing both doctors to turn to stare at him hard. "Ah, in case either of you haven't noticed, you've got a patient there who has been under for a long time who has already crashed once and I don't fancy your chances of bringing him back for a second time if he crashes again."

Zoe and Sophie shared an odd glance, each staring at the other with an angry determination. Finally, Sophie backed down, looking away with dissatisfaction and regret shining in her eyes. Zoe returned her gaze to PJ, holding out her hand and calling for a nurse to hand her another instrument. The simple action had spoken volumes to Zoe. It was Sophie's wordless way of admitting defeat.


	82. Ep 17: The Reason Pt3

**Part 3**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Lemon Parade" _by Tonic.

Amy sat back against the hospital wall with Nick beside her, staring blindly at that painting opposite. Her eyes were distant, filled with silent tears that seemed to shine differently to the ones that she had shed earlier in the night. They were forlorn, longing tears – the tears of one desperately missing a simpler place and time and an unconditional love like none other she had known since.

From the moment Amy had told him about her parents' deaths, Nick found himself wondering why he hadn't seen it before. It seemed to make sense, really, if he thought about it. The more he looked at Amy as she sat beside him, the more it hit him that she was quite obviously somehow who had grown up without a mother or father. He was kicking himself for not realising it earlier. But Amy's pain was hurting him almost as much as it did her. The thought of such a young child losing their parents made him think of Jennifer and his little Zoe, lost so long ago and so early into their lives.

"My Dad's boss had invited us to some work party," Amy began, startling Nick away from his own memories as her sad, yet somewhat hollow, voice rang out softly over the corridor. "It just dragged on and on…it was really boring, you know. A lot of grown-ups just talking about work and there weren't even any kids anywhere near my age for me to talk to. Everyone else's kids were all teenagers; they didn't seem to have time for some dweeby eight year old." She chuckled weakly at her own comment, only to glance up to Nick to find his expression oddly blank, yet marred with pain at the same time. "I dozed off on the back seat on the way home…the last thing I remember is Mum telling Dad that he needed to lose some weight…next thing I know, I'm waking up on the back seat of some police car and there's some blonde policewoman in the driver's seat."

She paused, forcing a weak smile more for Nick's sake than her own. He didn't really notice her gesture; instead, he was trying to stop his own tears from making it to his eyes and praying that she didn't notice that he was almost silently crying. "She wouldn't tell me what had happened," she continued, "just that she was taking me to my aunt and uncle's. My Mum's older brother, John, his wife, Sally and their two sons, Brendan and Damian. Aunty Sally shooed us off somewhere. I was probably a little concussed in hindsight, I don't remember much after that. Just…just that my head hurt really badly and that I wanted my Mum and Dad more than I ever had in my entire life. They probably told me that they were dead, but…" She shrugged helplessly, shaking her head as tears streamed silently down her cheeks. "…I just don't remember it at all. I just remember waking up in Brendan's bed and…and crying because I'd suddenly realised that they were never coming to pick me up and…and that I'd never see them again…"

"The shock takes a while to set in, doesn't it?" Nick mumbled, raising a hand to his eyes to wipe away his tears. Amy finally noticed how upset he was and reached over to place a hand on his shoulder. He shrugged it away, forcing a weak smile. "I had a daughter," he told her, realising that she was begging him with her eyes for some kind of explanation. "And a wife. This was years ago, before I met Zoe and long before the terrible two came along. My wife was Jennifer…beautiful Jenny…and then there was Zoe. My little Zoe…bit ironic that my second wife is named after my dead daughter, isn't it?"

He chuckled weakly, a little surprised as how easily the words had slipped out in Amy's company. Telling anyone about Jennifer and Zoe was normally an arduous task and one he rarely bothered to do, yet somehow, it wasn't that hard with Amy. Maybe it was because she'd seen pain. Real, life-consuming pain that turns your life upside-down and threatens to destroy every ounce of it.

"I nearly lost Jenny, before she died," he continued, smiling weakly. "She'd gotten sucked into some cult and brainwashed. I nearly lost her to the cult, but…but somehow we got through it. Then…then some bastard crashed into her car and killed both of them."

Her eyes widened at Nick's words, her mind running with the disbelief that she hadn't realised this sooner. In hindsight, it made a lot of sense. It certainly explained that 'Walking Wounded' aspect of Nick that had intrigued her of late and even his reaction to the car accident that had killed Stephanie. She shook her head slowly, biting her bottom lip in nervousness. "I never knew…" she began, only to find that Nick was shaking his head in a silent indication not to continue.

"Well," he replied with a forced chuckle, "I don't blame you; it's not exactly something I publicise. Anyway…what about this uncle of yours?"

Amy sighed, barely able to look away from Nick's expectant face. He was compelling her to continue with the story of her childhood, no matter how reluctant she was to share it with him. Finally, she began to speak in a soft and barely audible voice. "I was twelve years old," she told him, her tone distant and almost cold. "I was in my first year of high school. I'd been living with Uncle John and Aunty Sally for almost four years and…I guess I was happy there. They made me feel safe and cared for."

"Like PJ does now?" Nick interrupted, only to immediately regret doing so when Amy turned to stare at him. She looked as though she was about to say something nasty about his comment, but thought the better of it. She simply nodded, slumping back further against the wall and looking away again.

"Yeah, something like that," she replied, shrugging helplessly. "Anyway, Aunty Sally was in hospital. I could have sworn that she was there for her varicose veins, but Brendan told me later that it was chemotherapy. And my cousins were away on some school camp…it was just Uncle John and me and…he decided to get a movie out. He wanted The Wizard Of Oz, even though I said it was a kid's movie." She found herself unable to restrain a weak chuckle, even through the tears that were forming in her eyes. "He held my hand when we sat on the couch to watch it. Said we were on a date…it was a good night, I guess…until I was curled up in bed, trying to get to sleep."

"And that's when…" Nick began, only to find himself faltering. He didn't quite know what to say or how to describe the horrors that lie in Amy's past.

She offered him a weak nod in reply; staring at him as the tears silently escaped her eyes and began to slide down her cheeks. "He said he was cold and he snuggled up against me because…he said he wanted to get warm. And then he…he raped me and said that this is what people who…" Her voice wavered at this, suddenly lost as she realised what word came next. The simple four letter word that most people could handle, that should have been the sweetest word in existence, but instead brought on fear and uncertainty. "…people who _love _each other do," she finally spat in conclusion, causing Nick's eyes to widen in surprise.

He still remembered that Christmas morning when he had encouraged PJ to make his move. Now, PJ's words made all the sense in the world. He had a new respect for Amy as well as her relationship with PJ. The relationship and its foundations had to be strong if it could survive given their histories.

Amy smiled weakly at Nick, sinking back against the wall and drawing her knees up close to her chin. She pulled her mustard-coloured coat closer around her body, revelling in its warmth and the feeling of PJ that rested within the fabric. It had been a gift from him – just like the beautiful necklace that hung around her neck, hidden from view by her blood-stained suit – and it seemed to carry his smell and just his essence, like that fishy smelling hankie that she had to assume he'd kept after she returned it to him back in November.

"I ended up falling pregnant to him, you know," Amy continued, taking Nick by surprise. He nodded for a lack of anything else to do. "I told my Aunty Sally and…and all she did was call me a man-stealing slut and make me abort it. I didn't want to…I mean, it wasn't its fault, but…I couldn't fight her. I didn't have the strength to even try to defy her. I just thought that maybe…maybe if I just did what Aunty Sally said…maybe it'd all just be over and all be alright again. But it wasn't. It never was. I was tired and bleeding and hurt and I needed to lie down and sleep and get changed, but she drove me to the train station, dumped me on the platform and forced a couple of hundred dollars into my hand. She told me that I'd ruined her family and…said I couldn't come home. I could never go home."

Nick felt his heart give a heavy pang in his chest. The way Amy looked up at him made her seem so much younger than her thirty-three years, as though she were just a defenceless little girl instead of a highly intelligent and very capable woman. Amy's story brought his blood close to boiling. He wished that he had been there; that he could have done something all those years ago when all Amy had needed was someone in her corner. When all she needed was someone to look out for her.

_I wish I'd seen you as a little girl_

_Without your armour to fend off the world_

_I would have kept you underneath my wing_

_I would protect you from everything_

"I guess I was lucky," Amy continued with a helpless shrug. "I caught the next train to Melbourne, managed to hide the blood stains on my clothes until I got there and…and passed out on a park bench. But when I woke up in hospital, there was this lovely police officer sitting next to me called Lisa Craig. She took me in and cared for me, even when I was so emotional that any other person might have walked away. She soothed me when I realised that the abortion had been botched…" She froze, watching Nick's eyebrows raise in curiosity. She quickly looked away, nervously playing with her hair. She'd told the story of her abuse more times than she cared to count, whether it be to Susie, PJ, Garth, Bill or Kelly, but she'd never told them this much. She'd never been able to share this with them. The reason she felt just that little bit emptier inside. "…she helped me cope with the fact that I can't have my own kids…then she was killed because she was trying to save me from Lloyd Johnson…"

Amy suddenly found herself close to hyperventilating. The topic had travelled suspiciously fast from the abuse to Lloyd Johnson and was making her feel quite panicky and afraid. PJ was still in that operating theatre, perhaps not going to survive, and Lloyd Johnson was still at large. And Garth Henderson and Lisa Craig were dead and nothing was ever going to change that.

Nick reached over, wrapping an arm around her and pulling her close to his chest. Her sobs seemed to be louder this time, giving her a horrible sensation of choking. She held Nick back, burying her face in his shirt. She needed her PJ there more than she ever had before, yet somehow, Nick would suffice.

* * *

Piper Morris pulled the car to a stop, looking over to Mark as she undid her seatbelt. She didn't really know why she'd let Mark drag her out here. It was just some old disused warehouse in the industrial district of town, nothing special. If anyone else had made such a suggestion, she would have shot them down in flames and gone on with coordinating the search efforts from the station. But it wasn't just anyone else who had suggested it – it was Mark Jacobs.

Mark managed to climb out of the car before she did, looking over the warehouse with critical eyes. It was that calm, thoughtful nature about him that she had long admired, she realised as she climbed out after him. He was so different to her, always thinking about other people and always remaining calm and in control of everything. Admittedly, he had started letting some things get under his skin in the decades since they'd last met, but she could only assume that that was the effect of the job on him.

She drew her weapon, jogging over to the warehouse. She leant up against the wall next to the closed metal door, eyes narrowed as she listened intently for even the tiniest sign of life. Mark slowly followed her over, his instincts telling him to be slightly more cautious than his superior.

As Mark continued to edge towards the warehouse, a sudden gunshot from within the building sent his heart racing in his chest. He barely managed to throw himself to the ground in time to avoid it. He allowed himself to remain motionless for several seconds, before his head shot up in alarm because, in those seconds in which the sound of the gunshot lingered in the air, he hadn't seen Piper duck for cover like he had.

As he pushed himself up cautiously, his jacket now covered in dirt and dust and tiny specks of green grass, he caught sight of a tall, imposing figure standing in the doorway. The man kept one arm wrapped tightly around Piper's body, pinning her arms at her side, while he used his other arm to hold what had to be Amy's revolver to Piper's temple. He seemed to glower at Mark as he made it to shaky feet, his eyes widened at the sight before him. He'd seen the photos on LEAP – this was Lloyd Johnson.

"Look, come on, mate," Mark began, suddenly becoming acutely aware of how much his throat seemed to be closing up on him. "Just put the gun down and we can sort this out before SOG arrive. Hasn't this gone far enough already?"

Lloyd Johnson rose his weapon, aiming for Mark. "Fuck off!" he roared, firing.

Mark was barely able to conjure the sense to scamper behind the police car, crouching down underneath the windows. He waited there in silence, desperately trying to force his tense and shell-shocked body to breathe, before he finally dared to raise his head, narrowing his eyes as he focused back on Lloyd where he had his arms around Piper.

The gun was now fixed firmly at Piper's temple as he used his considerable bulk to drag her inside. He felt his heart sink within his chest as she disappeared into the darkness. The metal door slammed behind them, the loud thud seeming to echo in the lonely darkness that seemed to penetrate through his uniform and into his skin.

An involuntary tear pricked up in his eye and he knew at once that what he had once felt for Piper Morris wasn't gone.


	83. Ep 17: The Reason Pt4

**Part 4**

Lyrics in this part are from _"End of Your World" _by The Whitlams.

The silence of the hospital corridor suddenly seemed to shatter as the sound of doors opening and wheels squeaking met Amy's ears. She didn't know quite how long it had been since she had let herself fall into Nick's arms, resting her head against his chest. But, as she cast her tired and blurry eyes around the corridor, she realised that the beginnings of daylight were beginning to stream in through the window and that several birds had taken to chirping away on a branch outside.

She slowly pushed herself off Nick, suddenly realising that he had fallen asleep. She couldn't blame him; after all, it had been one hell of a long night. He stirred as the sound of creaking wheels grew closer and Amy clutched at the wall to pull herself up to standing, only to find herself struck by a horrible pins and needles sensation in her feet.

Yet, her tiredness and soreness seemed to vanish instantly at the sight that greeted her. Zoe and Sophie were standing nearby, pulling their white coats on absentmindedly while they watched two orderlies pushing a bed along. And, within the bed, lay none other than PJ. She only got a quick glimpse of her fiancé, but it was enough to tell her that he was still very unconscious. It was also enough to almost send her collapsing to the ground, barely thinking to grab for Nick to remain upright. PJ had been wheeled from sight by the time she was steady on her feet again, feeling quite light-headed and queasy.

"Is he okay?" Nick managed as he kept an arm around Amy, just in case she was to faint again. The simple question didn't seem to be enough somehow, but it was all that he could force forward from his muddled brain.

Sophie gave a heavy sigh as she tightened her coat around her slender frame, her eyes distant and misty. "We had to remove part of his liver and his gallbladder to stop the internal bleeding," she explained, her voice almost cold and detached. "He crashed once, but we managed to get him back. We found the bullet lodged near the spinal cord. There was enough swelling to indicate that the bullet caused some nerve damage, however…we caused more damage trying to remove it." With this, she glared at Zoe, before turning on her heel and disappearing along the corridor after where the orderlies had taken PJ, mumbling something or another about getting him settled in. Nick and Amy turned to Zoe, fixing her with a stare that conveyed both confusion and concern.

"He crashed once while we were trying to stop the bleeding," Zoe continued, absentmindedly beginning to twist a dark curl around the index finger of her right hand. "We were able to bring him back, however."

Amy didn't seem to be listening to Zoe's words, her mind instead musing over Sophie's explanation of what happened in the operating theatre. "What did Sophie mean about nerve damage near PJ's spine?" she demanded, only just resisting the urge to go into hysterics. Instead, she found herself surprisingly angry – not with the doctors, but rather with herself.

Zoe paused, looking up to Nick for some kind of assistance, only to find that his expression mirrored Amy's. She gave a heavy sigh, suddenly finding herself doubting what she had so strongly argued for not long ago. "We can't know anything at the moment," she pointed out, trying to force a note of hope into her voice. "We won't know the extent of the damage until the anaesthesia wears off and PJ regains consciousness…"

"But…" Nick probed, narrowing his eyes as he stared his wife down.

She sighed again, shrugging resignedly. "It's entirely possible that there will be some degree of paralysis caused by the spinal cord damage…"

"No," Amy interrupted, shaking her head as tears of disbelief and guilt sprung up in her eyes. "No, no, no…"

"Amy…" Nick and Zoe said together, their voices both filled with concern and kindness.

Amy pulled away from Nick, her breathing beginning to come in shaky, shallow gasps as her voice became unnaturally high-pitched. "You mean…he could be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life because of me?!" She stared at them, before suddenly lunging in the direction that PJ had been taken, only to find herself falling backwards into Nick's arms. She struggled against him; however her physical strength was all but gone as the light-headedness returned again. "Let me go!" she cried. "I have to see him!"

"You have to eat before you end up in the hospital bed beside him!" Zoe exclaimed, drawing closer. Realising that escaping was futile, Amy seemed to calm a little in Nick's arms, so much so that he released his grip on her. "Look, Nick will take you down to the hospital café and get you something to eat while we get PJ settled in, okay? And then you can go in and see him. Alright?"

She nodded, raising a weary hand to her head and combing matted hair back from her tired eyes. Nick grabbed her shoulders, steering her down a nearby corridor towards the café, telling her sympathetically that he'd shout her anything she wanted, no matter how expensive it may be. But she couldn't do much more than nod in reply to his words, as her mind was wandering down the corridor in the other direction, to where her fiancé was lying unconscious after having made the greatest sacrifice she could even begin to imagine.

* * *

Mark sat back against the police car, staring at his weapon miserably. He couldn't stop the nagging guilt within him, the little voice that told him that Piper wouldn't be in that mess if he hadn't insisted on dragging her out here. If only he'd let her stay at the station, coordinating the search, then maybe she'd be alright. Lloyd Johnson would still be at large and they'd still have no idea where he'd gone or what he was up to, but Piper would be okay and that somehow seemed to be the only thing that mattered.

Nothing seemed to be working. SOG was still several hours away, at least, and Lloyd didn't seem to be too interested in speaking to any of them. They had no way of knowing how Piper was doing inside the warehouse or even if she was still alive. He didn't remember having heard any gunshots, but his mind was so frazzled that a pig could fly past him and he probably wouldn't have batted an eyelid.

Dash settled in beside him, staring at him through bubbly, yet downcast eyes. "He doesn't stand a chance," she told him encouragingly. "One man to however many police officers…he's doesn't stand a hope in hell of getting away from here."

He returned Dash's hopeful smile, which seemed to be enough to move her on. However, as soon as she was gone, he found the smile fading as his gaze drifted back to his gun. As much as he didn't want to admit it, the situation really wasn't to their favour. All it would take was half a second and Piper Morris would be just another victim of Lloyd Johnson's corrupt rampage.

* * *

Piper glanced over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes critically at the metal pole at her back. She bit her bottom lip in concentration as she struggled desperately to pull her hands free of her handcuffs, but it seemed to be a fruitless task. In the few hours that had passed since she had let Mark drag her out here, all she had achieved was creating sore and bleeding cuts on her skin from the handcuffs.

"I don't know what you think you're going to achieve there, Inspector," Lloyd said, as he appeared from behind a stack of old, plastic crates. He seemed to be enjoying himself, as he casually passed one gun from hand to hand while the other remained stuffed in his belt. "You ought to know that you can't escape from those things."

She glared up at him, her eyes narrowed and cold. Tiny beads of sweat found their way down her cheeks as she continued to struggle. "You know, I can bring the whole weight of the Victoria Police down on you with a single call," she pointed out, nodding to a nearby window, the one through which Lloyd had shot at Mark. "They'll be in here and after you in a second if they think that you've laid a finger on me…"

Piper didn't get a chance to finish her threat, before something cold, hard and made of metal struck her cheek. Whatever it was that Lloyd had used against her was sharp and hurt made her cheek hurt like hell. She winced in pain, staring up at him as tiny red beads of blood began to roll down her cheek from the cuts that had appeared there. This Lloyd Johnson was a different kind of crim to the ones she had become accustomed to in St. Davids. He was hardened, cold and ruthless. He didn't understand calm reasoning. She couldn't bluff with him and she certainly couldn't afford to double cross him. She had to get onto his level, understand what it was that made him tick. It shouldn't be too hard, she thought with narrowed eyes. After all, she had done it for years while on the streets.

"You're after Amy Fox, aren't you?" she asked, staring at him hard. Lloyd seemed to think over her words for a brief moment, before nodding.

He turned away, beginning to pace as Piper stopped struggling against her bindings. She couldn't afford to be too hostile to him. He waved his weapon around wildly, raising his voice. "Stupid fucking bitch!" he shouted, his voice echoing through the empty warehouse. "She screwed up everything! She just waltzed into Homicide, acting like she was all high and mighty and destroyed it all! My empire, my cash, my contacts…" He trailed off, continuing to mumble and curse about Amy Fox under his breath.

She nodded, glancing to the window briefly before turning back to Lloyd, putting every ounce of strength she had into her plan. "I know Amy Fox," she pointed out, lowering her voice so that it was scarcely louder than a whisper. "I know where she is too. And, if you get me out of these handcuffs, I can deliver you right to her."

He looked almost as though he was going to reject her offer and use his weapon against her, sending a flash of panic through Piper's mind. She smiled at him, winking discreetly. This seemed to be all he needed. Much to Piper's relief, he removed the handcuffs and helped her to her feet.

* * *

The steady beeping of the machines met her ears harshly as Amy peered into PJ's hospital room, resting a hand on the doorframe as she took in the sight before her. PJ – the man she had long thought to be invincible – was lying on his back, the hospital blankets pulled up to his waist. The old blue shirt that he loved so much was gone and a thick bandage was wrapped around his abdomen, covering the place where the bullet had hit. An oxygen mask had been strapped over his nose and mouth, while several wires attached to his bare chest twisted around to the machines that surrounded him. A drip had been injected on the top of his right hand, attached to what Amy realised was a bag of clear fluid at the head of the bed.

"Oh my God…" she breathed, suddenly feeling quite intimidated by the sight before her. Up until that moment, what had transpired the night before had all been dominated by PJ's absence at her side. Yet, now he was there with her again, what had happened seemed to take on a whole new meaning.

Nick drew up behind her, his eyes widening in a bizarre blend of horror, fear and relief. If he thought about it, he found that he couldn't actually recall PJ ever being sick or injured or anything that even required more than a brief hospital check-up. Maybe that was why he had taken on a kind of invincible, unbeatable persona in his mind. And maybe that was why the sight of PJ in a hospital bed, hooked up to any number of machines that were keeping him alive and monitoring him, was frightening beyond belief. "Bloody hell."

Amy crept across the hospital room, each step tentative and uncertain, as though the mere act of stepping too loudly would cause PJ's condition to worsen. Nick followed her inside, closing the door behind him and leaning back against it to steady himself. He continued to watch with baited breath as Amy reached PJ's side, staring down at him with tear-filled emerald eyes that shone with what he suddenly realised was the utmost appreciation and respect.

She stared down at PJ, looking him over as she tried to make what she was seeing sink in. It took a long moment of cautious staring before she was able to reach out, wrapping her right hand around his left and letting the meeting of their skin bring shivers of anticipation and passion through her body. She relished in their romantic electricity much more than she'd ever be able to admit. After years of thinking of herself as unlovable and unworthy, that wordless connection made her feel more special that she ever had.

She slowly reached up with her plastered hand, gently running her fingertips along his forehead and his cheekbone. Acutely aware of Nick Schultz watching her every move, she bent down, pressing her lips against his forehead tenderly as she continued to caress his pale and lifeless face. She wanted to say something, anything, but nothing seemed to come. Or nothing that made much sense, anyway. She'd been through difficult things before, but she could never have imagined how hard it would be to stand there, watching the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with suffer because of her.

_Well I know with all the plans we had it was gonna be hard to succeed_

_But harder than any of that is sitting here watching you bleed

* * *

_

Piper slowly approached the back door of the warehouse, her heart pounding heavily in her chest at the thought of the gun Lloyd Johnson had aimed squarely at her head. She had to play this carefully, she told herself, trying desperately to calm her frazzled nerves. She'd done plenty of risky things in her time just to survive; surely this wouldn't be too hard. As long as she could get out of there, she had a chance. She just hoped that she wasn't going to have to deliver on her promise and deliver Lloyd straight to Amy.

She turned back to him, watching him sitting back on a pile of crates. The handcuffs that had been around her wrist just minutes ago now joined his spare weapon on his belt and she despaired to think of what use he'd put them to if her plan went badly. "There seems to be no one out this way," she told him calmly. "If I go first, they won't shoot if they happen to see. Then, we can get out of here through the alleyways and then it shouldn't be too hard to pinch a car or something."

"I wonder if Victoria Police knows about you," Lloyd teased, approaching her and bearing down upon her with a flirtatious grin. The fact that she was a good ten years older than him didn't seem to have him fazed whatsoever. It seemed he didn't just go for the young, pretty ones. "You're a corrupt little number, you are."

He leant in; wrapping an arm around her and pulling them close so that their faces were just centimetres apart. In any normal situation, she would have shoved him away and shown him who was boss, but this wasn't normal. She let him have his kiss, before quickly looking away. "The coast is clear," she told him in a deadpan tone, stepping over the threshold and into the warm morning sunlight.

A groan from behind her told her that the sudden brightness had temporarily blinded her attacker. She could run, she told herself thoughtfully. Take advantage of his moment of weakness and run for Mark and her colleagues who were no doubt watching the front, but she realised that that was probably a bad idea. He still had the weapon and he'd still be able to shoot her before she even took a single step. No, much better to continue with her façade.

"Her defences will be down," Piper told him, hoping that perhaps she could encourage Lloyd to trust her. "Amy Fox, I mean. You shot her fiancé, she'll be devastated."

Lloyd gave an indistinct mumble in reply. "Explains why she started blubbering, stupid little bitch."

Piper nodded, forcing Lloyd's words to the back of her mind as she approached a corner and peered around it cautiously. However, she didn't get a chance to see what was there before a familiar voice called out. "It ends here, Johnson!"

Mark, she told herself as relief rushed through her body. The relief, however, was short lived as she quickly found Lloyd Johnson's arms wrapped around her body again and Amy's service revolver at her temple.

"One false move and she goes home in a body bag!" Lloyd declared, watching with a smug grin as all traces of Piper's hope faded rapidly and Mark's expression contorted into one of absolute terror.


	84. Ep 17: The Reason Pt5

**Part 5**

Lyrics in this part come from _"It Ends Tonight" _by The All-American Rejects.

Mark let his gaze travel from Lloyd to Piper and back again, his heart pounding with terror in his chest. His hands shook slightly around his gun, making getting a good aim near impossible. The fear that pulsed through him was like none he had ever experienced before. Yet, while he seemed to visibly panic, Piper seemed to remain the image of calmness.

She didn't move within Lloyd's arms, staring hard to her colleague. She didn't know what she expected Mark to do, if she thought about it. He could hardly be expected to pull the trigger while she was still in the line of fire and he could hardly run to get help when that could easily equal a bullet in his back and then one in her head. In fact, she didn't think there was a way out of this that didn't inevitably end with at least one of them in a body bag.

Steady your weapon, she thought loudly, as if by inwardly shouting the words, she might somehow make Mark obey. She knew what their only hope of escape was and her hope of it somehow working was quickly fading.

Lloyd grinned to himself broadly as he stalked across the alleyway, wrapping his arm around Mark's neck roughly so that the weapon clasped tightly in his hand was threateningly close to Mark's face. He looked at both of his hostages in turn, shaking his head in disbelief. "And I thought Foxy made it easy," he commented with delight as he dragged the pair down the alleyway, each step taking them further and further away from their colleagues and anyone who could help them.

* * *

Mark winced in pain as a firm hand hit him in the small of his back, knocking him roughly into the small white Toyota on a little side-street. His forehead collided agonisingly with the car's roof, distracting him momentarily from his desperate thoughts of some way of getting out of there. In the few seconds when he was blinded by the pain, he heard Piper let out a scream of defiance as she was pushed into the back seat beside him. He knew this wasn't good. Lloyd Johnson had not one, but three police revolvers, had now found an unlocked car to steal and was going to heavy them into telling him where Amy Fox was. And, much to his horror, he knew he was going to crack under the pressure.

Lloyd climbed in the front seat, shuffling his weight awkwardly as he tried to get comfortable in the cramped confines of the car. He eventually managed to pull the seat back, hitting Mark's knees and forcing him to curl into an uncomfortable ball. "Bloody Asian cars," he heard Lloyd mumble as he found the keys sitting in the ignition, almost as though it were an open invitation for someone to nick it.

He chanced a glance over at Piper as Lloyd got the car going, stalling twice before the first corner. She didn't appear at all pleased with the turn of events, but she seemed to be handling it somewhat better than he was. She seemed to have a steely grimace of determination on her face. It was almost as though she had resigned herself to their fate.

"I'd gather that Foxy is at the hospital," Lloyd commented, chuckling with pleasure at the thought of what he would do. He turned back to them, letting his gaze drift from one to the other in turn. "And you two are going to take me straight to her."

"Go to hell, Johnson," Mark found himself saying, long before his logic kicked in enough to stop him. He watched Lloyd's eyebrows rise at his defiant comment and he was certain that his own eyes were widening in surprise as well.

Lloyd chuckled, as he pulled the car to a stop just outside a vacant lot. He drew one of his weapons, firing blindly at the back seat. Mark and Piper were barely able to move out of the way. "Shut…the…fuck…up…Jacobs…" Lloyd told him sternly, pausing between each word to let out a threatening grumble. "Or it won't just be Foxy with a bullet in her head, get the picture?"

Although his heart told him to shake his head and continue to defy Lloyd, his mind had finally kicked into action and told him better. He simply nodded, sitting back in his seat and turning to stare out the window hopelessly. He could only hope that Nick Schultz would be enough to stop Lloyd Johnson before he got his hands on Amy Fox again.

* * *

Sophie leant against the bench at the front desk of the hospital, chewing absentmindedly on a Granny Smith apple as she flipped through the files. It was a half-hearted exercise, really. She couldn't get her mind off the events in that operating room. In hindsight, she supposed that Zoe was right. The bullet would have had to come out sooner or later and the prognosis was hardly likely to improve. And, if it had been anyone else but PJ, she might have realised that sooner, when it actually counted for something. She couldn't help but wonder whether or not Mt. Thomas had been a worthwhile move. Sure, she loved it out in the country, but she didn't like the pressure. Working a country hospital was nothing like working in the city, where people were just patients and not friends. It made her think twice about the offer from Royal Prince Alfred that she had happily turned down just twenty-four hours ago.

She was startled from her thoughts by the sudden sound of glass smashing and a loud bang ripping through the air. She jumped back from the desk, her gaze travelling to the shattered glass from the double doors that now littered the floor, something small and metal lying amongst the shards.

Unlike most of the nurses, orderlies and cleaners that had been hovering around, she hadn't had the good sense to duck and hide or throw herself to the floor. Instead, she was still on her feet when a man who rivalled even Nick Schultz in size stormed through the doors, tossing two much smaller figures to the ground as he entered.

A second's glance told her that the two adults cast aside were Mark Jacobs and Piper Morris, but she couldn't move. She couldn't speak or scream or even make the tiniest of movements. All she could manage was to stand and stare at the large man that approached her, a gun aimed squarely at her head.

The sight of the gun barrel bearing down upon her frightened her more than she could have ever imagined it would. She couldn't stop the overwhelming memories of the last time she'd been this close to a weapon – the hot lead of Lochie Raynor's gun ripping through her skin, the crimson blood staining her pure white coat. It wasn't until the man – the Lloyd Johnson guy who had shot PJ, she suddenly realised – was leaning over her that she even attempted to back away.

He grabbed her coat roughly, almost choking her as he pulled her up close to his chest, his breath rushing over her face in hot bursts. "Take…me…to…Amy…Fox…"

She opened her mouth to defy him, only to find that the words simply didn't come. However, it seemed Lloyd Johnson didn't need an answer. He shoved her down the corridor, allowing her only the briefest of glances back to Mark and Piper as they pushed themselves up to their feet.

Sophie was acutely aware of the gun's barrel at the back of her head as she walked, each step slow and deliberate as though she were being lead to her doom. In a way, she supposed she would. Even just five minutes ago, she could never have imagined herself ever betraying a friend like this. Or, in this case, three friends. She was leading a very armed Lloyd Johnson to not just Amy, but Nick as well as an unconscious PJ. It'd be a miracle if any of them made it out alive, she realised numbly.

She finally stopped, just outside of PJ's hospital room. She lowered her head, the simple gesture silently telling Lloyd just where he was. He shoved Sophie aside, turning the doorknob and bursting in, greeted by the sounds of what was undoubtedly Amy screaming. Lying semi-conscious on the floor, her right temple bleeding from where she'd hit her head on a chair when she'd fallen, Sophie had never felt so ashamed.

* * *

Amy didn't think she'd felt so vulnerable and alone in her entire life. She couldn't help but scream at the sight that had greeted her when the door was thrown open and the familiar figure of Lloyd Johnson burst inside, her gun still clasped firmly in his hands. She watched Nick leap back from the door in surprise, very nearly crossing the width of the hospital room in a single bound. But it wasn't Nick or even herself that she was worried about – it was PJ. He was defenceless, lying unconscious in a hospital bed and completely reliant on her and Nick to avert certain disaster.

"Get out!" Nick shouted, suddenly recovering from his shock as he threw himself upon Lloyd Johnson, managing to force the rogue former cop to the ground. For a brief, fleeting moment, Amy truly believed that Lloyd had met his physical match in Nick. Indeed, Nick did manage to keep Lloyd pinned to the floor for several seconds, before the man underneath him managed to pull his right arm free and use it to bring the gun against the side of Nick's face. Almost knocked unconscious, Nick rolled off Lloyd, lying still on the floor.

She screamed again, rising to her feet as Lloyd approached her. The fear was wiped almost instantly from her body as she moved protectively in front of the form of her unconscious fiancé, staring her former boss down with all the conviction she could muster. "Get out," she spat, her face glowering with anger. Her heart pounded ever faster in her chest as Lloyd continued to advance upon her. "I said, get…"

Her threat was cut short, however, as Lloyd had grabbed her shoulders and thrown her to the floor. She barely managed to shelter her plastered wrist as she fell, her head hitting Nick's shoulder. She winced, quickly turning her gaze upon her armed attacker.

"You'd be surprised how easy it is to get past you lot of bumbling country hicks," he told her, grinning smugly to himself. Amy, however, found herself becoming increasingly distracted by Nick's stirring underneath her head. "In less than a day, I've managed to break into your station, shoot that other dickhead, take two of the highest ranking officers in this entire shithole hostage…"

"Don't you dare," she told him, her fear all but completely gone. Instead, it had been replaced by an angry, defiant rage. She wasn't letting Lloyd Johnson get a hold over her. He wasn't going to scare her, not anymore. "Don't you dare call my PJ a dickhead! Don't you dare call this beautiful town a shithole!"

He bent down, grabbing her tightly and roughly by the shoulder and shoving her up against the nearest wall, so that he now had his back to Nick's slowly stirring figure. Amy watched her colleague begin to wake as Lloyd's hand travelled from her shoulder to her neck and he began to squeeze. Her eyes suddenly bugged out of her head as she began to gasp desperately for breath.

He chuckled to himself, almost as though her impending death was a joke to him. "This is why you're in this mess, you little shit," he told her, forcing his gun to her forehead, although she would never have noticed. Lloyd's firm grip was cutting off her airway and making her feel incredibly light-headed and faint. Her vision was already beginning to blur and fade out to black as her desperation for air seemed to fade. She got the feeling that she knew what this feeling was, this increasing feeling of peace. If his grip kept up like this for even just a few more minutes, then he would finally have managed to kill her just as he had Garth and Lisa. All she could think about was PJ in her swirling, light-headed darkness. He was willing to give his life for her and she'd only ever been on borrowed time. And she had never managed to say it to him, that one, little, somehow very positive word…

"Get the hell off her, you filthy bastard!"

Amy suddenly found that Lloyd's grip on her throat vanished as she sank to the floor, raising a numb and shaking hand to her raw, red neck. She bent forward onto all fours, gasping frantically for breath as everything seemed to slowly slip back into focus. She suddenly became aware of how fast her heart was beating in her chest and how much her throat pained her. It took almost all the strength she had to lift her head to see Nick, sitting on top of Lloyd, one of the stolen police weapons now in his hands and trained on their attacker.

"So how does it feel now?" Nick asked, pressing the gun even further into Lloyd's face. "Well? Is this how you killed Lisa Craig and Garth Henderson? Well, is it?!"

Just as looked as though Lloyd might try to break free from Nick's hold and make a dash for it, the door burst open again and a wave of uniformed figures holding police revolvers entered, Dash McKinley in the lead with Kelly O'Rourke and Joss Peroni not far behind. Lloyd's eyes widened in horror as Dash crossed the room to him, aiming her gun at the space between his eyes, a hint of a proud smile spreading across her lips.

"Don't even think about it," she told him, watching as several St. Davids officers leapt forward, pulling Lloyd to his feet as Nick climbed off him. He handed his gun over to Dash as he placed his hands on his knees, almost doubling over as he tried to regain his breath. That whole fiasco had left him thoroughly exhausted and worn out.

However, he stood up a little straighter as he saw Amy climb to her feet out of the corner of his eye. Each step she took seemed to be determined and angry and her expression was one of steely resolve that almost frightened him. He felt his heart rise up into his throat as Amy stood face to face with the restrained Lloyd, her right hand clenching and unclenching before she raised it to Lloyd's face, bringing it hard against his cheek in an almighty slap.

A bright red mark seemed to appear on Lloyd's face instantly as he slowly raised his head to stare at Amy, his eyes showing for the first time some kind of real emotion. Yet, Amy's resolve didn't crack or break or waver in the slightest. She continued to stare him down, all traces of her fear gone. "You don't scare me anymore, Lloyd," she told him, slapping him once more as she saw his gaze drift to PJ. The action brought Lloyd's attention back to her as tiny tears filled his eyes. "Your power's gone; I'm not frightened of you. You can't hurt me anymore." As she spoke, Amy found herself surprised at how much lighter her heart felt in her chest. After so long of carrying the weight of Lloyd Johnson and what he'd done around with her, to be rid of it was a relief the likes of which she'd never felt before.

_A weight is lifted_

_On this evening_

_I give the final blow_

She stood there, drawing in loud, deep breaths as she watched Lloyd Johnson being lead away by her contemporaries, his gaze lingering upon her for as long as he could manage before eventually turning away. The way he hung his head as he was shoved along the hospital corridor spoke volumes to her. He'd realised that she had finally cut her ties to him and therefore the power that he had held over her.

Nick approached her, reaching out to take her right hand within his own. His warm hands brought a weak smile to her face, the first sign of genuine contentment that he'd seen from her since Garth Henderson's body had been found. He wanted to say something, anything, but somehow the words failed to come. So instead, he simply allowed himself to stand there, each of them feeling somewhat comforted by the other's presence and the understanding that whatever had happened in Melbourne Homicide was gone and that Lloyd Johnson wasn't coming back to wreak anymore devastation upon their lives.

_When darkness turns to light_

_It ends tonight, it ends tonight_


	85. Ep 17: The Reason Pt6

**Part 6**

Lyrics in this part come from _"End Of Your World" _by The Whitlams, _"Wreck Of The Day" _by Anna Nalick and _"Forever"_ by Papa Roach.

Mark sat back in his office chair, burying his face in his hands, barely feeling brave enough to peer out over his desk between his fingers. The events of the last two days were swirling around his mind, chasing one another in an agonisingly painful spiral of hurt and loss. Lloyd Johnson would be well on his way to Melbourne by now and, once he'd faced a magistrate and the eventual trial, he was never going to be seeing the light of day again. After what he'd done to them, Mark wasn't sure if he even deserved that much. He liked to see the good in people, but there was nothing good he could see in Lloyd Johnson. As far as he was concerned, a life sentence would never be enough to make up for what he'd done.

The door creaked open slowly as a woman of his age slipped inside silently. He didn't bother to even move at her entrance. He didn't have to. He already knew without looking that it was Piper Morris standing opposite him, showing real human emotion for the first time in the months since she'd moved to St. Davids. "I know nothing can make up for what he did," she told him softly, her voice taking on that familiar tone that she had once reserved for him and him alone. "But you know he'll be spending the rest of his life in a high-security prison. He'd be lucky if he can get parole by the time he's ninety…"

"You're right," Mark replied curtly, lowering his hands and finally exposing himself to Piper. "Nothing can make up for what he did. He murdered Lisa Craig and Garth Henderson in cold blood and then…then he broke into the station and managed to shoot PJ Hasham." He felt almost ashamed at the way his voice broke and wavered as he spoke. He had to be strong, but somehow the strength refused to come. "We can't bring Lisa or Garth back or make PJ walk again just by throwing the book at Johnson. And we nearly got Nick and Amy killed today, not to even mention Sophie Ash and the other hospital staff."

Piper nodded slowly, lowering her head. "I know," she whispered softly, wringing her hands in her lap. "But we can get justice for them. Make damn sure that Lisa, Garth and PJ's sacrifices were worthwhile. We can make sure that those charges stick and that Lloyd Johnson rots in a prison cell."

He nodded bleakly, looking at Piper with small tears in his eyes. "So what did you and the Homicide boys end up charging him with?" he asked, his voice seeming rather small and squeaky.

"Well," Piper began; clearing her throat as she finally looked up from her lap. "He's facing charges relating to his prison escape to start with, ah, and then we're charging him with murder, attempted murder, any number of assault charges, unlawful imprisonment, threats to kill, theft of a motor vehicle, break and enter, theft of police weapons, conduct endangering life, driving in a manner dangerous, affray…" She trailed off, realising that Mark had appeared to lose interest. He was now staring out the window listlessly, shaking his head sullenly. "Whether or not we can make Garth's murder stick will all depend on the judge and jury," she continued, leaning forward to grab Mark's attention back. "I don't know if we'll be able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that it wasn't a suicide, but we've got enough evidence to charge Lloyd Johnson with murder. But even without the murder charge, I doubt he'd get anything less than a life sentence and a hell of a long non-parole period. And he's not interested in pursuing Senior Detective Fox for assault either, so that's some more good news."

He nodded, letting out a heavy sigh of relief. "Good," he grumbled in reply. "An assault charge and a black mark against her name is just about the last thing that girl needs right now." He turned his gaze to Piper, staring imploringly into her eyes. "I realised something this morning that I'd never realised before."

She raised an eyebrow, becoming somewhat uneasy at Mark's words. She had never been very good at expressing her emotions, something she had long attributed to the way she had had to disguise them when she was younger. Once upon a time, hiding the way she felt had been the only way to survive. Now, it was more of a hindrance than a help. "And what was that?" she asked, her heart beginning to pound a little quicker in her chest.

He climbed to his feet, walking around his desk and pulling her gently to her feet. She stared up at him, quite unable to break the eye contact between them. He smiled down at her earnestly, raising a hand to trace her cheekbone tenderly. "That I never stopped loving you," he replied, lowering his head slightly to let their lips meet. For a moment, Piper seemed to be about to pull herself away, but she appeared to change her mind. Instead, she drew into the kiss, revelling in the warmth of the embrace.

* * *

Nick slumped back against the doorframe of the nurse's station, enjoying the calm silence and serenity that surrounded him as he watched his beloved wife stir a copious amount of sugar into her coffee. He couldn't hold back a chuckle at the sight. "I thought you'd given up coffee," he observed, causing her to spin on her heel to face him. For a moment, she glared at him harshly, before poking out her tongue and offering him a playful smile.

"Get stuffed, Nick Schultz," she told him as she waggled an accusing finger in his direction. "You gave it up too, remember, and I caught you drinking one yesterday morning."

He opened his mouth to deny that any such thing had ever taken place, but he found that he simply couldn't. If he was honest with himself, he didn't really have the energy to produce any dry wit or humour at the moment. He wasn't as young as he used to be and the lack of sleep in the last twenty-four hours had left him zapped. "Meh," he mumbled, shrugging it off as he crossed the room to her. He reached down, picking up the coffee and letting the warm brown liquid run down his throat. "Shit!" he cried, sitting it back on the bench. "You've got enough sugar in there to kill a horse!"

She chuckled, standing on tip-toe to wrap her arms around Nick's neck. He reciprocated by placing his around her waist, kissing the top of her head tenderly. It was nice, he decided as a contented smile found its way across his lips. The silence around them no longer seemed sterile and antiseptic, but rather soft and tender. After the chaos of that night and that morning, he'd give anything for the silence to last forever.

"It's so quiet," Zoe observed in a gentle whisper, burying her face in her husband's chest.

Nick nodded, tightening his grip on Zoe. Somehow, everything seemed to make a lot more sense in the silence of the morning than it had during that chaotic, nightmarish darkness.

_It's like a country town_

_Where all the drama's gone_

_It's left far behind and now there's only piece of mind_

They remained still for several minutes, before Zoe finally seemed to snap back to earth. She yanked away from Nick, tidying her hair hastily as she headed for the door. Nick stared after her, mouth hanging open. "And where are you going?" he demanded, his voice more yearning than angry.

She turned back to face him, sighing dismally as she thought over what she had to do. "There's just someone I need to talk to," she explained, hurrying back over to her husband to plant a tender kiss upon his cheek. "I'll be back, I promise."

* * *

Sophie looked down to her large black shoulder bag, feeling somewhat surprised that after three years in Mt. Thomas, this was the end. She'd called Royal Prince Alfred as soon as she had recovered enough from her attack that her speech wasn't slurred. She was going to start again in a place where nobody knew her name, where she wasn't going to make the same mistake of operating on a close friend, where she had a choice to decline something she couldn't handle.

Still, there was a part of her that couldn't help but wonder if she was perhaps simply giving up. Doctors had to be able to make working in a country town possible, Zoe Hamilton was a good example. Yet she hadn't and it made her feel weak inside.

She was vaguely aware of someone's presence at the door to the hospital locker room when a familiar voice spoke to her. "You're going somewhere?" Zoe asked, watching with narrowed eyes as Sophie straightened herself up and pulled the bag over her shoulder. She let her gaze travel from her colleague's face, back down to the bag and back again, shaking her head in disbelief. "You're not…leaving…"

"I got an offer from Royal Prince Alfred Hospital," Sophie explained, using the fingers of her left hand to comb strands of blonde hair back from her face. "They need someone to start straight away, so…" She stopped, suddenly realising that she really didn't know what it was she was going to say. That she had broken the number one rule of medicine and become too emotionally involved? That she was simply too weak to handle the pressure? That she simply couldn't have faced Amy if they'd lost PJ on the table? "So I'm leaving," she finished, hoping that it would be enough for Zoe.

It wasn't. "I didn't mean to offside you during the operation, you know," Zoe pointed out, approaching Sophie as she closed the door behind her. Zoe really was a copper's wife, Sophie realised with frustration as it became clearer that she wasn't going to get an easy ride out of town. "I'm not used to working with people who are actually as stubborn as I am. Normally they just take my word as gospel. You had some very valid points…"

"I had an emotional, subjective opinion," Sophie interrupted, folding her arms across her chest as the strap of her bag began to slide off her shoulder and down her arm. "I couldn't bear to make the tough decision and then have to tell Amy what we'd done. I couldn't live with myself, knowing that I'd be seeing them nearly everyday and having to watch what I'd put them through. I just couldn't put PJ in a wheelchair."

Zoe nodded, grabbing a nearby chair and pulling up. She sat down backwards, draping her arms over the back of the chair. "Every doctor has a different opinion about what risks should be taken," she pointed out, trying to remain calm and not fly into a desperate spiel and start begging Sophie to stay. "Some take risks that are simply too great. Others don't take enough risks and don't achieve what they could. It's all a matter of opinion, Sophie. Ours just differed this time."

"It's not that I couldn't take the risk," Sophie whispered sullenly as she sank back against the bench, letting her bag fall to the floor in defeat. She slumped down onto the floor, pulling her knees up close to her chin. "If that had been just about anyone else on that table, I could have done it. I would have decided straight away to remove that bullet, but…but…"

"It wasn't anyone else," Zoe finished for her, nodding to herself. "It was PJ."

Sophie nodded, sighing dejectedly. "Yeah," she conceded, letting her head fall back against the bench cupboard. "I love being a doctor and saving lives and I love following through and finding out what happened, but…I can't operate on friends like that again. I simply couldn't live with myself if I made the wrong decision under pressure and they lost their life. That's why I'm going to Royal Prince Alfred. I can still save lives, but…just not my friends' lives."

Zoe found a tiny smile creeping across her lips as she reached out, grabbing Sophie's hand and shaking it encouragingly. It was a sign of respect and perhaps admiration. A silent gesture that indicated not only a farewell, but a thank you.

As Zoe reached the door to head back to Nick, she found herself pausing and turning back to face Sophie, smiling genuinely. "Oh, and by the way," she told her, winking encouragingly. "We're not the ones responsible for putting PJ in a wheelchair. Lloyd Johnson had already done that. We just saved his life."

Sophie nodded, returning Zoe's smile as her contemporary disappeared around the corner. She sat back, her smile quickly fading as she looked around her. She supposed she was doing the right thing in taking herself out of a situation she couldn't handle, but she still felt cowardly. But she had to do it. After years of saving lives in Mt. Thomas, it was time to do something for herself.

_If this is giving up_

_Then I'm giving up

* * *

_

Amy leant forward on the edge of PJ's bed, every part of her body and mind so exhausted and fatigued that she was nearly falling off the chair and dozing off on the floor. She couldn't tear her weary emerald eyes away from PJ as she sat there, clasping his left hand within her own. She couldn't stop staring at his almost colourless face as he lay back within the pillows, the steady rising and falling of his chest and the beeping around her the only signs of life.

His sacrifice seemed to become more and more real as she sat beside him, watching him lie unconscious from anaesthesia. As she thought over what the doctors had told her about his injuries, she tried desperately hard to force her mental image of her PJ into a wheelchair, but she simply couldn't manage it. She couldn't see how they were ever going to survive this. She couldn't see how they'd cope in their personal lives or in their professional lives. Would he even have one after this? Had she just cost him his career as well as his ability to walk?

In the years since that night at the station when she and PJ had shared their first kiss, she'd always refused to look back on her decision to run. She couldn't reflect back on what she'd done, just in case she realised that it had been fool-hardy. But, with her defences lowered dramatically, she suddenly found herself doing just that. In hindsight, running did seem unintelligent and the reason for it seemed increasingly petty.

"I'm sorry," she whispered softly, the words tumbling forth from her mouth as though she had a bad case of verbal diarrhoea. "I should never have put you in such a position." Silent tears found their way down her cheeks as she continued to stare at him, regret and admiration mixing in her eyes. "I care about you too much to ever lose you, Peej. You're the reason I smile, that I laugh…you're the reason that everything seems to be perfect when it might otherwise be hopeless. Peej…you're the reason I'm here and…and…I'm never going to leave you. I promise you, Peej, what I feel for you is never going to fade." She raised her left hand to her chest, pounding it lightly around the area of her heart. "It's in here, Peej. It's here, it's real and it's forever."

_Because days come and go_

_But my feelings for you are forever_

She leant forward, kissing his hand as she left her head rest against it, almost as though it were a pillow. She closed her eyes; letting the soft touch of PJ's skin against hers comfort her weeping heart.

"Amy?"

The feeble, croaking voice calling out to her stirred Amy back from her daydream. She slowly rose her head from his hand, her vision swirling briefly before finally focusing on his fingers. They were moving tentatively within her palms, weakly attempting to take hold of her hand.

She let her gaze drift up to PJ's face, where his beautiful blue eyes were now fluttering open, searching the starchy hospital room for her. It took several seconds for them to finally come to rest upon her face, the tiniest of smiles contorting upon his colourless lips. "Amy," he whispered, his voice hoarse and almost lost within the sounds of the machines and the mask covering his face. He managed to find the strength to raise his right hand to his face, pulling the oxygen mask away from his mouth. "You're okay."

Amy's eyes widened at PJ's words as her expression became one of disbelief. He had just been shot and had nearly died on the operating table and his first words were concern for her. She reached forward, cradling his cheek within her plastered hand. "Of course I am," she whispered, leaning in closer as her voice became choked with tears. There was just so much she wanted to say to him, to tell him how much she cared about him and appreciated the sacrifice he had made, but the words simply refused to come. "He's gone, Peej," she finally managed to tell him in a choked whisper. "He's not coming back…"

As she sat there, staring tearfully into PJ's surprising calm and level gaze, she felt her composure crumble even further into disarray than it had already been. "I'm so sorry, PJ, I'm so sorry!" she sobbed desperately, using the back of her trembling good hand to brush half-heartedly at her tears. "This is all my fault…it should have been me…"

PJ shook his head weakly, squeezing her hand as tightly as he could when he was still somewhat affected by the anaesthetic. He offered her a small, encouraging smile. It instantly seemed to ease her nerves and brought a wave of relief over her. "I had to do it, Amez," he croaked as his smile broadened slightly. "I'm an old fashioned guy; I couldn't let that bastard hurt my girl."

"My girl…" Amy repeated, her voice suddenly calm as she uttered the words with a kind of reverence. If someone had called her 'their girl' just a year ago, she would have had their head on a platter. There couldn't have been anything more degrading or sexist than being seen as just some man's property. But there was something different in the way that PJ referred to her as his. It wasn't domineering or paternalistic, instead, it was sweet and seemed to make everything seem very exclusive. It was almost like a compliment for PJ to see her as his, the most beautiful thing he had in his life.

He nodded at Amy's words, before an uneasy silence fell between them. He looked away momentarily, casting his gaze down to the long lumps underneath the blankets that were his legs. From the moment he'd become aware of Amy's soft voice beside him, PJ had known that something was wrong with his legs. He just hadn't been able to quite put his finger on what it was. Until now. "Amy…"

"Yeah?"

"I can't…" he trailed off, suddenly realising just how frightened he felt. The more he thought about what was wrong with him, the more it intimidated him. He was no doctor, but he didn't have to have a PhD to know what this meant. "I can't…I can't feel my legs…"

Amy seemed to stare at him for a long moment, the uncertainty and fear in her eyes causing tears of his own to well up. Her grip on his hand seemed to tighten instantly, almost to the point of cutting off his circulation. She began to bite her bottom lip absentmindedly, something PJ knew he could only take as a bad sign.

"Amy, please…" he begged, gripping her hand almost as tightly as she gripped his. "What did the bullet do to me? Why can't I feel my legs? Amy…"

She closed her eyes, desperately trying to hold back the tears as she spoke. She found it was almost impossible to look him in the eye, knowing full well of what she had to tell him. "The bullet lodged itself near your spine," she whispered, her voice wobbling and breaking as the guilt began to set in again. "They reckon it caused nerve damage and…and they may have caused more when they got it out."

"Spinal damage?" PJ queried, raising his right hand to lay it across his abdomen. Beneath the thick white bandage, he could feel the lump of the hospital dressing over his wound. And it hurt. It hurt much more than he dared to say to Amy, especially given how guilty she was already feeling. He knew he'd get a longer explanation when one of the doctors came in to see him, but he needed to hear it now. He needed a chance to get his head around it. "A wheelchair…"

Amy nodded, biting her bottom lip harder as her face became quite suddenly very pale. "Possibly." She stared down at him, before degenerating back into huge, racking sobs. Her whole body seemed to tremble with the weight of her cries as she bowed her head over his hand, holding it to her cheek as though it may offer some reassurance. "It's all my fault…I'm so sorry…I'm so sorry, Peej…"

He knew that his own worries and fears were going to have to wait. He stretched his right hand over to her, wincing in pain as he did so and placed it upon Amy's hand. The touch seemed to soothe her, albeit not by much. He tried to keep a small smile upon his face as he relished in the sensation of her skin on his. He couldn't blame her for this, he simply couldn't. She hadn't done anything wrong. She was still as precious to him now as she had been twenty-four hours ago when he had held her on that dusty, lonely road where Garth Henderson had died.

He still loved her and he knew that was never going to change, wheelchair or no wheelchair.


	86. Ep 18: Every Sunday Pt1

**Episode 18: "Every Sunday"**

**Summary: **_Amy returns to work for the first time since PJ's shooting, only to find herself trapped in a supermarket freezer with Joss as a gunman goes on a rampage. The Heelers are too busy for work when Dash's daughter falls ill and PJ begins physiotherapy._

**Part 1**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Every Sunday" _by Olivia Eden.

Amy sat back at her desk, her hand shaking almost uncontrollably as she worked half-heartedly on a report that she was meant to have finished for her supervisor in St. Davids no less than three weeks ago. It had been nearly two weeks since PJ had been shot, she reflected as a deafening roar of thunder sounded from beyond the office window. It was an early Sunday morning, very dark and very stormy and anyone with any sense was still rugged up in bed. But she wasn't. Instead, she was sitting up at the station, working on paperwork with nothing but a coffee at her side.

_It's a rainy Sunday and it's cold outside  
I've got my coffee and papers to write_

She'd almost decided to stay at the hospital again, lying in the bed beside PJ as she had done for almost every day of the last two weeks. In fact, she still really didn't know why she'd decided to come into work again at all. Facing the place where her fiancé had nearly bled to death had been more painful than she'd thought, even if all of the blood had been scrubbed away. Her heart had started pounding in her chest and hadn't stopped until she had downed her first coffee for the morning.

She didn't know how many times she had refilled the old blue mug since then, but judging by the way her body seemed to tremble with anticipation, she could be sure that it was no less than ten. The caffeine seemed to roll around her system; exciting her senses and making her feel a little jumpy. She had half a mind to switch the phones back from St. Davids in the hopes that it might lead to a new case and something to do, something to burn up her energy. And perhaps some way of getting PJ out of her head for a bit.

_It's a rainy Sunday and it's dark outside  
I've drunk too much coffee, I'm on overdrive_

In a way, the silence was a bit of a comfort. She hadn't set foot outside the hospital since PJ had gone inside and really hadn't had even a second to herself. Even when she was locked in the bathroom, curled up on the floor of a toilet cubicle with her head on her knees, she wasn't alone. There was always someone hovering around – a cleaner, a nurse, a patient. There was never any quiet and never any solitude. The still, dark station was almost like a cocoon, somewhere she could hide inside until she was ready to emerge again.

She knew it was PJ's first day of physiotherapy today. The bullet wound had, for the most part, healed and his liver was on the mend, so it was time for him to start getting up and about. He hadn't said a word to her about it, but she could instinctively sense that he was apprehensive about it. He was feeling vulnerable without the ability to walk and she knew that scared him. She couldn't blame him for feeling anxious when he was relying on a catheter to go to the toilet and facing life in a wheelchair. She just wished that he'd stop being so bloody tough and stubborn and talk to her about it.

Suddenly, a shiver of panic ran down her spine at the sounds of heavy footfalls and off-tune humming from the back entrance of the station. She jumped to her feet, sending her chair sprawling to the ground with a loud crash as it collided with the metal bookcase behind it. Urgently she glanced around the office for a weapon, her gaze finally settling on a nearby pot plant that PJ must have bought for company during her long two and a half year absence. She clutched it close to her chest as she slinked over to the door, pressing herself into the corner. She cursed herself mentally for not bothering to sign out her gun as she raised it over her head, waiting with baited breath as the intruder came closer.

As the door burst open, she went to bring it down hard over the intruder's head, only to find that he had raised a hand to stop the pot plant in mid-air.

"Foxtrot?!" Nick Schultz demanded as his large figure suddenly became illuminated by the station lighting. Amy drew away, awkwardly sweeping the plant behind her back as bright red blush rose into her cheeks. "Bloody hell, what are you doing here and why the hell did you just try to kill me?!"

Amy stared at him blankly for a moment, before annoyance with him crept into her voice. Despite the understanding they'd formed over the last few weeks with the hit-and-run accident and PJ's shooting, he got up her nose with his dry sense of humour, although she had to admit that she probably got up his just as much. "Foxtrot?!" she queried, shaking her head as she narrowed her eyes in momentary confusion. Frustration quickly set in. "And what the bloody hell did you think you were doing, sneaking into the station?! I thought you were an intruder!"

"Intruder?" Nick asked her, shaking his head in disbelief. "You aren't the only person who works here, you know. Anyway, shouldn't you still be at the hospital with PJ?"

She looked away, slipping the pot plant back into its rightful place and sinking back into her chair. She nervously brushed at the dark strands of her fringe, staring thoughtfully out into the muster room beyond Nick before turning to glare up at him harshly. "I'm allowed to return to work whenever I so desire, Nick," she reminded him. "I need to work…" She trailed off, suddenly finding her frustration evaporating on her. "I need something to do."

His expression suddenly became sympathetic and he nodded thoughtfully. "I see," he mumbled to himself, before his expression brightened somewhat and he began to head to the mess room. "Goodo then, Foxtrot. I'll just grab myself a coffee and get settled in for the day…"

His attempt at dry wit trailed off as he moved out of earshot, once again leaving Amy in the lonely serenity of her office. As she returned her attention to her paperwork, she found herself desperately trying not to look at PJ's desk. It kept reminding her of where PJ was and what he was going through because of her.

"Foxtrot!"

Her head snapped up at Nick's furious call from the mess room, her heart beating a little faster in her chest at the sound of his quickly approaching footsteps. He burst back into the office, his gaze falling upon her coffee mug. She watched him hesitantly for a long moment; quite uncertain of what it was that was wrong, before finally he spoke. "What the bloody hell do you think you're playing at?!"

"What?" she asked, her brow furrowing in confusion. "What are you on about now?"

"The coffee!" he roared, his voice barely restraining laughter. "You've used the last of the bloody coffee!"

Amy's heart began to beat slower in her chest at this as a smile spread across her face. She could see why PJ had chosen Nick as a best mate – no matter how infuriating he could be, he couldn't help but make you smile sometimes. She looked over to the coffee mug guiltily, before shrugging and offering him a cheeky smile. "Sorry!" she chimed.

Nick glared at her with a mock harshness for a long moment, before shaking his head at her as a tiny smirk found its way across his lips. "Oh, you'll keep," he told her, the blinds of the CI office door rattling as he closed it behind him on his way out.

* * *

Amy sat at her desk, her left right cheek resting delicately in her right hand while she prodded absentmindedly at the keys of the station laptop with the fingers of her left. Her wrist was still in plaster, but it was on the mend according to Zoe. It didn't hurt anymore; it was just more of an inconvenience. She was constantly forgetting that she wasn't meant to get it wet and constantly banging it against things, whether it be PJ's bedside table in hospital or the bench of the mess room. Zoe did seem to think that she might have some permanent weakness of her wrist, but refused to comment further, saying that only time would tell.

She wasn't really working and she was sure that her colleagues could tell. Or what little of them had trickled in, at any rate. Dash was running late for the start of her shift, although Nick seemed unconcerned with her tardiness. According to him, Dash was yet to learn of the miracles of the alarm clock. Joss was also missing, but Amy knew that he was probably sleeping in as well. She felt sorry for him these days; she knew it must be hard trying to cope with Kelly's emotions since her rape, although she could see that things were slowly improving.

The others were there, though. Mark and Kelly were over in his office, sharing what appeared to be a very deep conversation about some car accident that had occurred two nights ago, while Nick sat out in the muster room, looking almost close to falling asleep. She gathered that he hadn't had a chance to grab a coffee at home and was in desperate need of a caffeine hit.

She turned her gaze back to the laptop screen, squinting slightly to make her eyes focus properly. With no new cups of coffee to keep her caffeine levels up, she was crashing and burning big time. Not to even begin to mention the lack of sleep and her heightened stress levels. So, as much as she needed the distraction, she'd given up on paperwork and had started playing the few meagre computer games that the laptop contained.

The door into the muster room burst open suddenly, causing Amy to jump back in surprise. She glared up at the intruder, only to find herself face to face with Nick.

"What now?" she demanded grumpily, letting her chin sink ever further into her hand.

He pointed up to the cheap white clock hanging on the wall above the point where Amy and PJ's desks met. She followed his finger with her gaze, before turning back to stare at him in confusion.

"It's ten o'clock," Nick declared. "There should be at least a couple of shops open by now. Since you were so keen on finishing off the coffee this morning, you can go over and pick some up."

Amy rose an eyebrow at him suspiciously, before turning back to her game of computer Hearts. She'd been playing the Microsoft online version for at least fifteen minutes and was being firmly beaten by beginner players from China, Spain and Japan. "Last time I checked," she began, her voice almost in monotone as she spoke, "uniforms didn't have the authority to use plainclothes as their slaves."

"Come on," he pleaded, pulling out his version of puppy dog eyes. Amy had to resist the urge to laugh at the sight of him. "If you don't go and get the coffee, no one will. Please?"

She stared at him for a good minute, before finally rolling her eyes and nodding in resigned agreement. "Alright, alright," she grumbled as she climbed to her feet. "I'll go get your bloody coffee."

"Good!" Nick chimed, his mood suddenly much lighter. He watched Amy as she brushed past him out into the muster room, grabbing her car keys from their hook, only for his gaze to fall upon a yawning Joss as he wandered into the station. "And you can take Pepperoni with you!"

Joss snapped to attention at this, turning to look intently at Amy in confusion. She simply shrugged, motioning for him to follow as she shot Nick a final death glare on her way out to the car.

* * *

"This is a royal waste of my time," Amy grumbled, snatching a small jar of International Roast from the supermarket shelve with a ferocity that made Joss jump back a little in surprise. She stormed away down the aisle, her footfalls echoing throughout the empty supermarket. Joss jogged along after her, taking longer than normal strides to keep up with Amy's unusually fast pace.

If she thought about it, it really wasn't wasting her time anymore than that game of Hearts would be if she were still are the station. In fact, Nick was possibly doing her a favour by getting her out into the town again, even if it was only just to the supermarket for coffee. She'd been in her own little world for nearly two weeks and she supposed that she had been starting to forget everything else. She was just frustrated. She wanted some juicy case to sink her teeth into, to throw herself heart and soul into so she could lose herself in her work. Policing was a powerful anaesthetic, but only when there was more to do than shuffle papers and stock up on coffee.

Joss continued to jog along behind her, quickly finding himself out of breath. He was certainly getting out of practice, he realised, chuckling inwardly. "I didn't think you'd be coming into work for a while," he confessed quietly. "I thought you'd want to stay with PJ for a little while longer."

She continued to walk along ahead of him, considering his comment carefully before allowing herself to reply. "I didn't think that would be any of your business," she remarked curtly, her footfalls becoming a little louder on the supermarket's hard floor. "But if you must know…"

Joss never got to hear the remainder of Amy's comment, for her words were halted abruptly by an ear-splitting explosion from somewhere near the front counter several aisles to their right. Something firm struck her between her shoulder blades painfully, knocking her face-first to the floor. For a moment, she felt her heart sink heavily, fearing that she had been struck by a bullet, only for her to realise that it had been nothing more than Joss Peroni's hand.

He lay on the floor beside her, scanning the scene around them with his eyes as his hand remained firmly on her back. She pushed herself up slightly, the coffee jar forgotten as she clutched her plastered wrist close to her body. She didn't need to ask what that sound had been. She'd heard it often enough in her career to know that it had been a gunshot.


	87. Ep 18: Every Sunday Pt2

**Part 2**

Amy recoiled slightly as the sound rang out over the store again, this time a little nearer to where she and Joss lay. Footsteps were heading towards them, only two or three aisles away. She pressed her face to the floor, peering through the gap beneath the shelves. She could see the gunman's shoes – old, mud-covered work boots. The kind that belonged to a man who was not afraid of some dirty, hard labour.

"Amy," Joss hissed, shaking her shoulder violently. She spun back to face him, a little reluctant to tear her gaze away from the boots. He didn't look away from her as he nodded his head somewhere off to their left, where Amy could see a steel metal door bearing a sign that declared the area to be 'staff only'. "On the count of three, run to that door as fast as you can. It won't be locked. I'll join you. If he gets me before I get inside, just bolt the door and ring for help. He won't be able to open it from the outside."

She stared at him blankly for what seemed like an eternity, the footsteps drawing ever closer to where they lay. Finally, she nodded, using her good arm to push herself up into a crouching position. She transferred her gaze from Joss to the door and back again, biting her bottom lip nervously. "Alright," she agreed, her voice scarcely a whisper.

"Just run for it when I get to three," Joss told her as he climbed into a squat. "One…two…three."

Amy didn't know how she managed to jump to her feet and run for the door, her right arm swinging madly at her side while her left remained pressed to her stomach. After what felt like forever she reached the steel door, throwing herself against it hard and forcing it open. It gave way easily at her weight, exposing her to a sudden rush of cold air. She didn't give herself time to survey her surroundings before turning back to the door, catching a glimpse of Joss racing desperately towards it as it began to swing shut.

He managed to force his way through, taking a short moment to catch his breath before tearing back to the door, throwing all his weight against it to force it closed and bolting it shut. Amy watched him as he sank to the floor, clutching at a stich in his side as he leant back against the door. She didn't really know what to say at all, her mind was too busy whirling back over the events of the last few seconds that it hadn't stopped to think of what she should say. It made her feel entirely useless. She had at least ten years on Joss in the job and outranked him by far, yet it had been him who had gotten them out of harm's way.

Joss swore quietly in Italian as he let his hand fall away from his side, his head coming to rest against the cool metal of the door. He finally looked up to her, chuckling weakly in relief. "He won't be able to get to us in here; it can only be unlocked from the inside."

His words prompted her to take a look around at the room in which they had taken refuge. The temperature had already gotten to her, making goose bumps rise on her arms. It was cold in here, and a little on the dark side. Shelves and boxes lined the walls, labelled with brand names such as McCain and Bird's Eye. She gasped as exactly where they were seemed to register in her brain. "We're in the freezer!"

"Yep," he replied, nodding as he looked around. "Don't tell anyone, but I found this place about two years ago when I was dating the manager's daughter. The locking system's convenient if you're trying to stop people from walking in, but I must admit that the frozen peas put me off a bit…"

Amy turned and headed towards what appeared to be a thermostat, her thoughts drowning out Joss' comments about his sex life. It was a little out of her reach, she realised with a distracted frown. She dragged an old plastic crate over to it, climbing up on top. She regarded the thermostat curiously for a long moment, before fiddling with the dials. After several minutes, she jumped down off the crate, her brow furrowed. "The bloody thermostat's broken," she declared.

"Yeah, I could have told you that," Joss commented with a half-chuckle. "I found that out two years ago as well."

A gunshot from somewhere beyond the freezer door met their ears, suddenly reminding them of what exactly was going on. Joss thrust his hand into his pocket and pulled out his mobile, only to swear at it loudly and throw it away in disgust. Amy's eyes narrowed as she regarded the old blue Nokia mobile, watching it skid across the frosty freezer floor.

"The bloody thing's flat!" Joss cried, banging his head back against the freezer door in frustration. "I forgot to charge it last night!"

She reached down into the pocket of her black jacket, feeling through it desperately for her own phone. Her eyes widened in shock when she realised that it wasn't there. "Shit!" she cursed, pressing her fingertips to her lips. "Shit, shit and double shit! It must have fallen out of my pocket!"

Joss hung his head, massaging his temples desperately. "Oh God," he mumbled. "There's a madman out there and we're stuck in a freezer and no one knows what's going on."

Amy turned to glare at him hard momentarily, before her expression softened. She had to keep a level head; it was their only way out. "The others will work out what's happened soon," she pointed out, sitting back against a nearby cardboard box. She drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin atop of them. "They'll find out about it and come soon. We've just got to wait it out in the mean time."

* * *

Mark held the phone to his ear, his eyes closed tightly in a silent prayer as he heard the sounds of ringing on the other end of the line. Piper hadn't spoken to him at all since they'd kissed in his office and even if he did manage to catch her on the phone at the station, she'd make some really obvious excuse to rush off, saying that she simply couldn't stop to talk. It was making him frustrated, perhaps even more so than Penny. Hiding the kiss from her hadn't been as difficult as he'd thought it would be, especially given that she wasn't speaking to him these days. In short, his love life was a complete and utter disaster.

The ringing eventually stopped, only to be replaced by the now very familiar voice of Sergeant McGregor. His dreary, gruff introduction met Mark's ears, causing his heart to sink heavily in his chest.

"Hi, ah, this is Senior Sergeant Mark Jacobs of Mt. Thomas Pol…" Mark began, only to trail off into an unintelligible mumble when he realised that Sergeant McGregor wasn't listening.

"If you're looking for Inspector Morris, she's not in," Sergeant McGregor replied, the tone of his voice indicating that he clearly had over things on his mind. "I could take a message for you if you'd…"

Mark shook his head, momentarily forgetting that Sergeant McGregor couldn't see him. He caught a glimpse of Nick Schultz out of the corner of his eye, standing in the doorway to his office with his arms folded across his chest. "No, no, that won't be necessary," he mumbled in his now standard reply. "I'll, ah, catch up with her later. Yeah…thanks, bye, bye."

He slammed the phone down, letting his head sink forward into his hands. Nick surveyed him coolly for a long moment before deciding to speak. "I'm heading over to Dash's place, maybe see what's keeping darling Deidre from joining us."

"Good idea," Mark replied with a nod after a long moment of uneasy silence. "Take Kelly with you, she could probably do with some fresh air."

Nick continued to survey Mark, peering down his nose at him with his usual calmness. "Righto," he grumbled in reply. As he turned to leave, he found himself face to face with Kelly, who was sipping tentatively on what appeared to be an iced coffee. "Come on, Sunshine," he told her, motioning to the exit. She stared after him, shaking her head in disbelief.

"But I just got this coffee!" she pointed out, waving it towards Nick. He took no notice and Kelly eventually sighed in resignation. "Alright, alright!" she mumbled, setting her coffee down on her desk and following him out to the car park, stomping her feet on the floor of the station.

Mark watched the situation play out through tired eyes, before letting his head come to rest in his hands once again. "What a bloody mess."

* * *

Nick pulled the patrol car to a stop outside a small rose-coloured cottage in a quiet Mt. Thomas neighbourhood. It was nice here, he reflected as he glanced around, noticing that Kelly was doing the exact same thing. Well-established trees stood tall and mighty, casting the street into a state of permanent semi-shade. The cottage before them was like something out of a picture book. Well-tended roses bloomed in the garden while several bright green vines wound their way up along the edge of the veranda. It was simply gorgeous – a very Dash McKinley choice of house.

No sooner had Nick and Kelly climbed out of the car had the front door of the cottage burst open. Dash raced out from inside, wearing little more than a pair of pale pink pyjamas and her hair hanging messy and mattered around her face. Tears of alarm streaked down her cheeks as she took the veranda in a single bound, grabbing Nick's arms and beginning to drag him inside. "She can't breathe, Nick, she can't breathe!" she cried, well and truly in hysterics.

"Hang on, hang on," Nick mumbled, refusing to be pulled along anywhere by the much younger and much smaller woman. "What's going on? Who's not breathing?"

Kelly watched on with narrowed eyes, before they suddenly grew wide with realisation. "It's Phoebe!" she exclaimed, catching Dash's attention sharply. "Something's wrong with Phoebe!"

Dash abandoned her attempts to drag Nick inside, appealing to Kelly instead. "She's been coughing all night, barely able to breathe…she got better for a while, but then she just got worse…God, she can't breathe!"

Nick followed them as Dash dragged Kelly inside the house, pausing momentarily as he crossed the threshold. The house had a distinctive feel to it that instantly made him feel comfortable. Photographs adorned every available bit of space, ranging from old family pictures from when Dash was a child to what were clearly Phoebe's baby pictures. The entire house seemed to have a homely musty quality to it, something that he was certain Dash didn't foster within it by accident. He knew that growing up within the large McKinley clan must have instilled a strong sense of family within Dash.

"She's in here!" Dash explained, leading the pair into a bedroom off the main hallway. It looked like any typical two-year-old's bedroom – a copious amount of stuffed animals, dolls and brightly-coloured paintings with pale pink walls. The entire ambience seemed to be spoiled by the little girl sitting propped up in bed by several pillows, her dark hair pulled back off her face into a messy ponytail as she coughed feebly into her hands. In between Phoebe's coughing fits – which sounded more like a seal barking than anything else – Nick could hear a high-pitched sound.

Dash sat herself down on the bed beside her daughter, pulling Phoebe close to her chest as she kissed the top of her head tenderly. The little girl could barely breathe, that much was obvious. "She's got a temperature and she was vomiting about half an hour ago," she continued as Kelly and Nick approached tentatively, almost as though stepping too loudly would make the situation worse. "I tried calling for an ambulance, but they were stuck out at some MVA and I couldn't get her to the car and…"

Nick quickly crossed the room to his colleague and the little girl, pressing the back of his hand to Phoebe's forehead as he looked her over. Dash was right, Phoebe did have a temperature and her lips were turning blue. The coughing continued as Nick sat back, staring at them thoughtfully. "I reckon it might be croup," he told them, earning a confused reply from Kelly.

"What's croup?"

"Respiratory disease," Nick answered simply as he rose to his feet, casting his gaze around the bedroom thoughtfully. "The twins had it when they were one. Zoe taught me what to look for in case it came back again. They never got this bad though…"

Dash wrapped her arms around Phoebe tighter, beginning to bounce her on her knee gently. "Respiratory disease?" she breathed, her voice almost being lost in her throat. "Oh God, she's got asthma…that's probably why it's so bad…"

"Do you want me to call an ambulance?" Kelly queried, stepping forward cautiously.

Nick shook his head as he motioned for Dash to follow him back out to the patrol car. "Nah, no point, they'll probably still be stuck out at that MVA," he pointed out. "We'll take you in the patrol car. We'll use the siren, that way we'll get there faster."

"Thank you, Nick," Dash whispered as she slowly rose to her feet, holding Phoebe close to her chest as the little girl continued to cough. "Thank you so much."

He chuckled as he shot Kelly a playful wink. "No worries, Deidre, it's all part of the service."


	88. Ep 18: Every Sunday Pt3

**Part 3**

The sounds of shouting from somewhere way down the corridor beyond his hospital room door startled PJ awake from his nap. He could hear the footsteps becoming louder and the voices more urgent as they grew closer and he found himself instantly recognising them as the cries of Nick and Dash. He threw the blankets back off his body and made to jump to his feet to join them, only for nothing to happen. His legs remained motionless on the white sheet beneath him, an odd feeling like pins and needles overwhelming his useless bottom half.

He let a groan of frustration escape his lips as he flopped back into the hospital pillows, covering his eyes with the palms of his hands. He'd give almost anything to wake up from this nightmare and find that none of it had been real. The only thing that was really keeping him sane was what the alternative could have been – if he hadn't taken the bullet, then Amy surely would have. He could never have let her be hurt like that, not if there was anything he could do to stop it. Despite all the anger and the frustration, he knew that he wouldn't have changed what he'd done if he could. Not a single thing.

"Nick!" he called out, sitting up straight again as he craned his neck to peer out into the corridor. "Nick Schultz!"

The door opened quickly and Nick burst through, the others standing behind him peering in with concerned curiosity. "You alright, mate?" Nick asked, approaching PJ's bedside, his expression heavy with worry. "You okay?"

"I'm fine, I'm fine," PJ replied, noticing that the others had moved from the corridor. His brow furrowed as he thought through what he'd seen – an obviously distressed Dash, a coughing Phoebe and Zoe and Kelly tending to them as best they could. "What's going on out there? Is it Dash's little girl? She didn't look too good."

Nick sighed as he sat himself down on the end of PJ's bed, his added weight almost making the hospital bed tilt. "Yeah, it's Phoebe," he explained, staring sombrely at PJ. "I reckon she's got croup. Dash said she's got asthma too, so she's not doing too well…"

PJ raised an eyebrow as his expression deepened to match his old mate's. He wasn't quite sure what croup was, but from the way Nick looked, he didn't have to be a doctor to know it wasn't good. "And what's croup?"

"Bloody hell, Patrick Joseph!" Nick exclaimed, staring at PJ in disbelief. "What is it with you and Kelly, don't you read your medical journals?"

"And you do?" PJ retorted, a kind of laugh playing on his lips. He knew that the situation didn't warrant laughter, but bantering with Nick always made him want to chuckle. Sometimes it was near impossible to be around Nick and keep a straight face at the same time, no matter how hard you tried.

Nick shook his head, flushing a horrid shade of pink. "Well, yes," he mumbled, disguising it somewhat with a cough. "It tends to happen when you're married to a doctor, just be glad you're marrying a copper, mate." He chuckled weakly, before his expression became serious once again. "It's a respiratory illness. The twins had it when they were one, it was pretty unpleasant. They weren't nearly as bad as Phoebe is, though…" He trailed off, turning to stare out into the corridor. It was a wistful, longing kind of stare that seemed to bring the seriousness of the situation home to PJ.

"Poor kid," PJ whispered, shaking his head dismally. "It's just not fair, isn't it? Dash tries so hard to be a good mum and then something like this happens…but Phoebe will be alright, won't she? I mean, she's not going to…"

A heavy sigh escaped Nick's lips as he turned to stare once again out into the corridor. "I don't know, PJ," he replied with a helpless shrug. He suddenly seemed to force some energy into his expression as he turned back to face PJ. "But hey, remember who her mother is. If that girl's anything like Deidre, then we've got nothing to worry about, eh?"

PJ nodded, half-heartedly forcing a smile upon his lips. "Yeah," he breathed, his gaze travelling down to his useless legs as a sudden weight seemed to hit his heart. "Nothing to worry about."

* * *

Joss clambered up onto the plastic crate, shivering involuntarily at the cold. He'd lost track of exactly how long they'd been stuck in that supermarket freezer, but it could have easily been several hours. He and Amy were long past half-heartedly attempting to keep each other amused and had been in silence ever since. She was sitting back on the floor of the freezer, curled up into a tight ball as she rocked backwards and forwards slowly. Meanwhile, he stood atop of the crate, banging his fist against the thermostat in a last ditch effort to make it work. He supposed that he wasn't just trying to make the thermostat work as much as venting his frustration with everything that was going on. They were stuck in a freezer and neither of them had their gun belts or their mobile phones. Amy's fiancé was lying in hospital, possibly never going to walk again. His girlfriend had been raped and was still struggling to cope with it.

"Joss?"

The wobbling sound of his name immediately caught his attention, making him lose his balance and almost crash to the floor. He was only just able to catch himself in time as he looked over to the source of the sound – Amy. She was still curled up on the floor, but she looked a lot worse than she had when he'd last looked at her a few minutes ago. Her rocking had turned into a violet shivering and her lips were turning blue.

He leapt off the crate, kneeling down at her side as he rubbed her arms in desperation to keep her warm. He'd never known Amy to be anything less than impeccably strong and determined to the point of almost being bloody-minded and if she was ever vulnerable, then it was something she tended to do more in private. But now she was helpless. The cold had gotten to her, probably more so because of the stress she'd been under lately with PJ in hospital. And the memories of Homicide as well. He didn't know much about Amy's time in Melbourne, but he did know that whatever had happened in Homicide between Amy Fox and Lloyd Johnson wasn't pleasant.

She turned her emerald eyes up to meet his gaze, her stare reminding Joss of that of a young child. He slid his police jacket off his shoulders and wrapped it around Amy, nodding in acknowledgement of her whispered thanks as he turned to stare at the door leading out into the supermarket. The jacket was only going to help for so long. If they stayed in there as they were for much longer, then they were both going to be suffering from hypothermia. As it was, he wasn't certain that Amy wasn't already suffering from it – she was shivering so badly and her breathing was awfully shallow. He had to do something…

"Amy," he whispered, rubbing her arm faster as his heart began to beat faster in his chest at the mere thought of what he was going to do. "I'm going to go out there. We can't keep going like this…I'll just grab some blankets, maybe something warm…I'll keep out of the gunman's way as best I can. Make sure you lock the door as soon as I'm out. Don't let anyone in except me, okay? I'll knock and speak to you when I'm back…alright? Amy?"

She nodded slowly, pulling Joss' jacket tighter around her shoulders with shaking hands. She curled further into a ball, looking thoroughly displeased with the idea of Joss going back out there.

"Please don't go to sleep, Amy," he told her, hugging her tightly to his chest for a short moment. "Please stay awake; please just don't go to sleep." He pulled away, thoughtfully combing strands of her hair back from her face. He could see why PJ loved her so much – there was just something very beautiful about her. "Please don't go to sleep."

Amy nodded, reaching out to take Joss' hand in hers as he rose to his feet. He looked down to her, realising that her eyes were pleading with him. "Don't do anything stupid," she begged, shaking her head desperately. "Please don't play hero."

He found himself chuckling slightly at this as his mind drifted back momentarily. "Because we don't need anymore dead heroes, right?" he replied, giving Amy's hand a squeeze before heading towards the door. He turned back at the last second, waving a hand over the freezer floor. "Try to move around a bit, it might help you warm up."

She nodded, shakily climbing to her feet as Joss opened the door and disappeared as it swung shut. She pressed her body up against it to force it closed and bolted it as Joss had done earlier. Amy remained motionless against the door for several minutes as she listened intently for even the slightest indication of a struggle. She knew that, if it became clear Joss was in danger, she'd race out to help him. She couldn't help but feel guilty for letting him go out there.

She slowly shuffled away from the door and began to pace the length of the freezer. She found herself biting her bottom lip as she stared vaguely into space, her mind wandering away from her. This certainly wasn't a typical Sunday morning - that was for sure.

* * *

Joss scampered across the supermarket tiles, almost losing his footing several times. He finally reached the nearest shelf, crouching low and hoping that large blue bottles of washing detergent would be enough cover. He couldn't stop his heart pounding fiercely in his chest, rising up into his throat and making swallowing difficult. He could hear the gunman's footsteps from somewhere not too far away, probably five or so aisles to his left. He remained motionless as he tried to conjure an image of the supermarket in his head. He was certain he could get to the blankets and clothes aisle without getting caught out, but it was still risky.

Staying as low as possible, he crept across the ends of two aisles to his right, moving further away from the shooter. He paused there, waiting with baited breath for any tell-tale signs that he was being followed. There were none. The gunman's footsteps seemed to be moving further away if anything and things would be okay if that's the way it stayed.

As he reached the aisle he was looking for, he chanced a glance back at the way he had come. He could see something lying on the floor. It appeared to be a very broken silver mobile phone. Amy's, he was certain. He made a mental note to go back for it as he ducked into the aisle, almost on all fours. A pile of blankets caught his eyes, making a small smile creep across his face. He grabbed a large pile of the scratchy, cheap blue blankets and stuffed them under his arm as he cast a wide glance around him. He couldn't hear the footsteps anymore, which made him feel somewhat uneasy. He had the odd sensation that he was being watched, which he realised with a heavy lurch was entirely possible. But he couldn't stay there for too long or Amy would start worrying if she hadn't already.

He remained in his awkward crouch as he scarpered back to the end of the aisle, only to find himself almost deafened by a gunshot that passed behind his head, missing him by mere centimetres. He was certain that his heart stopped for at least a few seconds, before what had happened registered. He was being shot at. He had to move and now.

Joss leapt up to his full height, tearing off in the opposite direction to the freezer. A sudden impulse had struck him, telling him that, if nothing else, he had to get the gunman as far away from where he'd left Amy as possible. And, if memory served him right, then there should be a staff toilet at the other end of the supermarket that he could duck into if he was lucky. Another little hide-out he had discovered.

He could hear the heavy boots following him, the footsteps sounding somewhat clumsy on the hard tiled floor. Joss didn't even bother to chance a brief glance over his shoulder before turning a corner sharply, throwing himself through a door clearly marked with 'toilet' and 'staff only'.

He waited with baited breath as the footsteps of the gunman drew ever closer. It was unnerving him as he sank back against the door, pushing his weight against it in the hopes that it might just be enough. He closed his eyes tightly, silently beginning to mouth a desperate prayer. He had never really understood why his mother had placed so much belief in religion before, but he was certain he got it now. It was almost reassuring to think that there may be someone out there who had more control over the situation that he did and was not the gunman lurking outside.

Clutching the blankets tighter to his body, he finally chanced pushing the door open a crack. There was no sign of the gunman, but he could hear footsteps. A slight smile found its way to his cheeks as he realised that they were moving away from where he was hiding. He pushed the door open wider, slipping through the gap and closing it soundlessly behind him. He closed his eyes, counting to three under his breath before taking off at a sprint. He was certain he was making a large amount of noise, but he didn't stop to consider it any further. The sound of his footfalls and his breathing seemed to deafen everything else. He probably wouldn't have even noticed if he was being shot at.

After what felt like forever, he reached the freezer door, nearly collapsing against its metal outer surface. He pressed his face up against it, desperately struggling to keep his voice at a low hiss as he tried to catch his breath. "Amy!" he hissed, listening out attentively for footsteps as he cast a furtive glance over his shoulder. "It's Joss, let me in!"

The freezer door swung open, sending a rush of warm air inside. It hit Amy's face hard as she backed away, allowing Joss to slip inside. He tossed the blankets over to her as he threw himself up against the cold metal, bolting it shut again as he caught his breath. Amy caught the blankets awkwardly, wrapping a couple around herself before offering the rest back to Joss. He managed a grin through his silent laughter as he took the remainder of the blankets, pulling them around his shoulders. "That bastard's bloody mad!"

Amy nodded, slipping down beside him as she pulled her knees up close to her chest. She let her chin rest delicately on top of them, staring ahead of her almost vacantly. "I was scared," she admittedly in a voice that was almost monotone. "I heard the gunshots and I just couldn't get the image of PJ out of my head. I thought maybe he'd…"

"Nah," Joss interrupted, trying desperately to force some kind of a smile upon his lips, only to find himself failing miserably. "It was close, but…I'm alright." He paused, suddenly reflecting on Amy's words. "It must have been horrible," he whispered, unable to quite meet Amy's gaze. "I mean, seeing that happen."

She sighed heavily, burying her face in her hands as tears threatened to well up in her eyes. The image seemed to be burned into the insides of her eyelids, taunting her endlessly. She nodded, slowly raising her head to offer him a faltering smile. "Yeah…" she mumbled in agreement, her eyes becoming distant. "I don't get why people keep doing this, you know. All these people keep dying because they're trying to save me and…and I don't get what it is they think they're saving."

He nodded in understanding, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to his chest. She hugged him back, squeezing him as tightly as her plastered wrist would allow. The warmth that ran through their bodies was comforting, almost enough to bring a trace of a smile to their faces. Joss found himself rubbing his hand along her back soothingly as he leant back against the door. "You're beautiful," he told her gently, "you're strong, you're intelligent…and they all loved you so much that they couldn't see you hurt."

Amy found her eyes widening at that one, little insignificant word, her mind dwelling on it for a long moment. Yet, for the first time in years, the word didn't conjure up a sense of fear or helplessness. Rather, it made her feel stronger and happier than she had ever been before in her life.


	89. Ep 18: Every Sunday Pt4

**Part 4**

Dash sat back in the hospital room chair, throwing her head back as a loud cry of frustration left her lips. The waiting was the worst part. Zoe had checked Phoebe over and assured her that the odds were in her favour, but there were no guarantees. Phoebe seemed to be doing better in fact, she was now fast asleep, but she knew that that was no promise that the croup was gone or that everything would be as okay as she wanted it to be.

She sat forward, tightening her grip on her little girl's hand. Her daughter's fingers were so small within her own, Dash realised with a teary smile. Phoebe was – and always had been – the much longed for child, the family she had always wanted to build. The only thing that bothered her was Phoebe's father. The man who had betrayed her more times than she cared to count, yet she couldn't stay away from.

Phoebe coughed a little in her sleep as she stirred, not quite waking. Her fine fringe – the same shade of brown as her mother's – hung limply over her forehead, the strands moving ever so slightly as Phoebe changed position in the bed. Dash couldn't help but smile at the thought of how much Phoebe looked like her. Except for those eyes…they were definitely her father's dark brown eyes.

There was a strange sound at the doorway, almost that of wheels. She spun, just about ready to pounce, only to find herself instantly relieved at the sight of PJ. He was sitting in a wheelchair, pushing himself forward tentatively. He was wearing little more than a very loose pair of dark grey track pants and a baggy white t-shirt. "Dash?" he whispered, as he slowly continued to close the gap between them. "Nick told me what happened…is Phoebs going to be okay?"

She turned to stare longingly back at her daughter, before shrugging bleakly. "Zoe said that the odds are in her favour, but that's about all she'd commit herself to," she explained, her voice threatening to break into sobs. "Why can't she tell me what's going to happen?"

"You know she can't," PJ reminded her as he reached out to take Dash's spare hand within his own. His eyes became sympathetic as he regarded Dash and Phoebe in turn. "She probably wants nothing more than to tell you that it's all going to be okay, but…"

"She can't," she finished for him, nodding in understanding. "You know, she's only been a part of my life for a little over two years, but…I already can't imagine what it would be like without her. She's the most precious thing in the world to me, Peej. I…I need more than just odds being in her favour."

He found himself nodding in understanding as an encouraging smile found its way to his lips. "Hey," he told her, rubbing her hand reassuringly. "Odds don't count for much, really. Remember, by all accounts, I should probably be dead right now. Anyway, that girl's a fighter. She has to be, given who her mother is."

Dash smiled, chuckling weakly at PJ's words. She squeezed his hand back, meeting his kind blue eyes. "Yeah…" she agreed, trailing off thoughtfully before changing the subject. "You've got physio today, don't you?"

PJ's eyes widened in remembrance as he nodded regretfully. "Yeah," he mumbled, glancing back to the door. "I do. I was actually on my way when I kind of bribed the nurse to give me a few minutes to check on you and Phoebs."

A kind of uneasy silence fell between them, before Dash suddenly burst out into laughter. "You're trying to put it off, aren't you?" she asked with a chuckle, as PJ nodded apprehensively.

"Zoe's already warned me that it won't be easy," he explained, casting a furtive glance back to the door in case the nurse had returned. "She reckons that it probably won't be quite as hard for me as it is for some others because I'm relatively fit and strong, but…I guess I'm just afraid of what's going to happen if this doesn't work."

She stared at him hard, before her expression softened. "You mean if…"

"…If I'm stuck in this chair for the rest of my life," he finished, sighing heavily. "The job's everything, Dash. Whenever everything else has gone wrong in my life, the job's always been there. When I lost Mags and Mum and the station and Jo…work was the one thing I could always turn to. What's going to happen to my job if I'm stuck in this chair for the rest of my life? I'm nothing without the job and I don't want to inflict that kind of misery on myself or Amy."

"You aren't going to lose your job, Peej," Dash told him firmly, staring levelly into his gaze. "There is no way that you're not going to keep on being our Senior Detective Hasham, trust me. Not if there's anything that we can do about it." She paused, noticing that he was almost breaking out into great, choking sobs. "Hey," she soothed softly, briefly letting go of Phoebe's hand to wrap her arms around PJ's neck. "It'll be alright. You'll see. Take some of your own advice for once, remember that odds aren't everything."

He nodded, pulling away as a half-smile spread across his face. "Of course," he replied, squeezing Dash's shoulder as he slowly began to back away. "It'll all be fine."

* * *

The sounds of ear-splitting screaming hit Amy's ears harshly, causing her to jump so violently that her neck almost began to ache. She turned to Joss in alarm, only to find that he was staring back at her with the same panic shimmering in his eyes. An uneasy silence seemed to hover throughout the supermarket as a gunshot rang out. The sound was dulled slightly by the metal door that kept Amy and Joss separated from the outside world, but it was still too loud for comfort.

"There's someone else out there," Joss whispered, pressing his ear up against the cold metal as Amy did the same.

Her eyes widened in sudden realisation as the screaming started again. Her mouth dropped open in horror. "There's a little kid out there," she whispered, the desperate cries of fear now becoming distinguishable as pleas for the child's mother to wake up.

Joss suddenly jumped to his feet, throwing the blankets aside. Amy looked up to him, watching him with curious eyes. However, she somehow got the impression that she knew what he was planning to do. "We can't let that guy hurt anymore of them," he explained, reaching down to help Amy to her feet. "You stay here; I'll go out there and see what I can do…"

"No way," Amy snapped in reply, shrugging the blankets and Joss' jacket off her shoulders and letting them fall to the floor. "If you're going out there, then I'm coming too. Safety in numbers, remember?"

He opened his mouth to refuse, to tell her that she wasn't going to come with him and that was final, but he found that his mind simply wouldn't bring the words to life. Instead he nodded, gesturing vaguely to the door. "Okay, but be careful," he warned her gently. "That guy's bloody mad…we'll split up, we might have a better chance of finding them that way. And if either of us can get to the exit, then we'll go get help, okay?"

Amy nodded in agreement as she began to bite her bottom lip thoughtfully. Somehow, this seemed to be the stupidest idea on the planet. Yet, she knew it was the only way. "Okay," she replied. "Just…"

"…No playing the hero?" Joss finished, a hint of a smirk playing on his lips. "I get it. I'll be careful. Just as long as you are."

Joss unbolted the freezer door, pushing it open hesitantly. He stuck his head through the crack, peering around. The screaming and crying was much louder now that the steel was no longer deafening it, but there was no sign of the gunman. He slipped out into the open, remaining in an awkward crouch as he beckoning to Amy to follow. She remained beside him for a long moment as they considered the supermarket before them.

"I'll head off over that way," Amy explained, gesturing vaguely off to the aisles that stood furthest away, near the toilet that Joss had hidden in not long before. "You start here. We'll work inwards."

He nodded, not daring to question the forceful tone in her voice. She had slipped back into her position as his superior and her instruction was not one to be disobeyed. He didn't speak as she slipped away, keeping low as she made a desperate dash over towards the toilet, eventually turning a corner and disappearing from sight.

Amy could feel the bile rising in her throat as she remained low, her legs trembling almost violently beneath her. She was cold and exhausted almost to the point of collapsing and her body was screaming at her to stop, but she couldn't. She crept closer to the edge of the aisle, grabbing onto the cold, white metal shelves in an attempt to keep herself steady. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, counting inwardly as she tried to steady her breathing and her heartbeat.

There was one thing she and Joss hadn't worked out between them – what they'd do when they did eventually find the gunman. And now she'd found him in the aisle just next to her.

She opened her eyes at the sound of screaming, a kind of protective anger rising within her at the sight that greeted her. The gunman was crouched over, his gun still clasped firmly in one hand while he used the other to keep a strong grip on a little blonde girl, no older than five. She crept a little closer, craning her neck to get a good look at the other figure. It was a woman, probably a couple of years older than herself. She was lying on the cold supermarket floor, a bullet wound in her chest and blood dribbling from the corner of her mouth. She would have almost bet her life on the child's mother being the gunman's victim.

The gunman suddenly whirled around as he desperately continued to try to subdue the little girl. The girl seemed to focus on Amy, her large sky blue eyes widening in horror. "Help me!" she screamed, kicking almost aimlessly as she thrashed around, sending her blonde curls flying.

Amy threw herself back behind the shelf, pushing her body to the floor as she waited, not daring to even take a breath. The girl had been thrown aside, colliding with her mother's body as the gunman turned his attention to Amy. He stalked around the corner to her, thrusting the barrel of his gun into the back of her head as he pulled her up by the scruff of her neck.

"Come on," Amy managed with a heavy gulp as she scanned her surroundings desperately for even the smallest sign of Joss. "This is crazy. Let the girl go, she doesn't have to get hurt…"

He didn't wait to hear the rest of Amy's plea. He stormed back over to where he had been standing and threw Amy to the floor roughly. She used her right arm to cradle her wrist as she landed, her mind barely registering the sounds of the young girl screaming. Amy sat up slowly, only to find herself faced with the most bizarre thing. The little girl was back with the gunman, but this time beating desperately at the only thing she could reach of him – his legs. She was screaming and crying as she kicked him and pounded with her little fists, the indignation in her voice almost bringing a smile to Amy's face. "Leave her alone! She didn't hurt you! Treat others like you'd like to be treated!"

He swatted her away calmly, as though she had been no more than a fly. Amy reached blindly behind her, pulling herself up to standing with her right hand. The little girl seemed to have given up on stopping him herself, instead choosing to hide behind Amy's legs. She wrapped her arms tightly around Amy's knees, making moving anywhere near impossible.

"You do realise that the police will know about this any second now, don't you?" Amy began, casting her exhausted mind back through every lesson from her academy days over fourteen years ago. In spite of the terror that ran through her veins, there was something almost comforting about being back in a situation like this again. It certainly felt more 'normal' than anything that had been happening to her over the last two weeks at any rate. "Once my colleagues get here, you're gone. You'll spend years inside for this."

He didn't respond to her attempts to negotiate. She reached back with her right hand, placing it protectively on the child's shoulder. An emotion she didn't really understand seemed to well within her, making her feel oddly warm and contented. It took her several seconds to realise that it was a kind of maternal instinct. He grunted loudly as he approached Amy and the girl, brandishing his gun at Amy's head.

She tried desperately to back away, however her efforts were hampered somewhat by the little girl, who appeared to be frozen in terror as she continued to hug her knees. "Sir, please just put the gun down…" Amy trailed off, her eyes narrowing as she found herself meeting the gunman's gaze. There was a kind of manic quality to his hazel eyes. Something that told her that everything she was saying was being met by deaf ears.

Suddenly, a flash of blue seemed to come from nowhere. The girl seemed to jump back as she squealed in surprise, sending Amy crashing to the floor and into shelves of chip packets. She reached up to rub the back of her head lazily as she found her gaze fixed on the two men before her. One was the gunman, who was now laying face-down on the floor. His eyes were closed and he was clearly unconscious. The other was Joss Peroni who stood before Amy, brandishing a frozen chicken in his right hand.

Complete disbelief passed through Amy's face as she stared at him, unmoving for several minutes. She could only watch the look of pure satisfaction and pride grow in Joss' expression as he turned to stare at the chicken, unable to suppress a laugh. "Looks like the Victoria Police has found a new weapon," Amy mumbled, shaking her head as she reached out to him to help her to her feet.


	90. Ep 18: Every Sunday Pt5

**Part 5**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Chasing Cars" _by Snow Patrol.

Amy stood by the supermarket entrance, staring off into the distance absentmindedly while the little girl clung to her side, sobbing heavily into her hip. A heavy, choking kind of sadness filled her as she thought about the girl – Anne, she'd found out shortly after Joss had come to the rescue – and the fate of her mother. She didn't want to think about what it must have been like, seeing your mother die and simply not comprehending it.

It made her think about PJ. She'd been thinking about it while she'd soothed Anne. She loved him with every essence of her being and, for once, it didn't pain her to admit it.

"I spoke to one of the ambos," Joss broke in, causing Amy to jump as he interrupted her thoughts. "They're pretty sure that he escaped from a psyche facility in South Yarra. They're sending him back. He'll probably get off the murder charge, though."

"Charges," Amy corrected, causing Joss to stare at her in confusion. "They found the shop assistant tied up out the back with a bullet in his head. They're almost one hundred percent certain that he's responsible."

Joss sighed as he leant back against the supermarket counter, folding his arms across his police jacket. "What I'd like to know is where the hell everyone else was during this little nightmare."

Amy turned to stare at him bemusedly, only to find herself nodding in agreement. Where had they been?

* * *

PJ hurriedly wheeled himself down the hospital corridor to his room, ignoring Zoe's frantic pleas for him to stop. She was following him at an awkward jog, her white coat flapping about behind her wildly. "PJ!" she called.

He found his room without too much trouble and quickly began to shuffle his body up onto the bed. Zoe reached out to help him, seeing him struggling slightly, but he simply shot her a cold glare of refusal. She stepped back, surveying him worriedly. "Physio can't have gone that badly!" she pointed out. "Talk to me about it, for heaven's sake!"

"Nothing happened," he replied tersely, yanking the hospital sheets up over his legs. "They may as well be a pair of wooden blocks for all the good they did me."

Zoe's expression softened as she moved closer to PJ's bed, perching herself on the edge of it. "It's a slow process, PJ. Rehabilitation and physiotherapy are slow processes that take a lot of time and energy…"

"Cut the crap, Zoe." PJ snapped, staring at her with a kind of vulnerability in his eyes that she'd never seen before. It made her heart melt in her chest at the thought of what this was doing to him. He gulped, refusing to break eye contact with her as he nodded down towards his legs. "I want the truth. How much better is this going to get?"

She opened her mouth to remind him that she simply couldn't give him any promises, only to find that the words wouldn't come. This wasn't just some patient she could detach herself from. This was PJ. Even if she tried to lie to him, he was smart enough to know the truth, anyway. "Spinal cord injuries often get worse before they get better," she explained softly, reaching out to place a tender hand atop of PJ's own. He glanced down at it briefly before looking up to stare at her again. "The swelling around your spine is going down, which means that you will see some improvement."

"Like what?" he asked her, his voice almost wavering with apprehension.

"I'd say you'll most likely regain bowel and bladder control," Zoe replied, her own voice beginning to shake almost as badly as PJ's. "As well as sexual function and probably even some movement of your toes. But…"

PJ found himself nodding, not really needing to hear what she had to say next. He got the idea. "But I can't expect much more than that, can I?"

"Probably not," Zoe conceded, kicking off her shoes as she drew her knees up to her chest, letting the heels of her feet rest of the edge of the bed. "But you'd be surprised at how much easier those improvements will make your life. You won't need a catheter or run into some of the problems that other paraplegics have."

He swallowed down the bile in his throat, his voice becoming awfully small. "But I probably won't walk again."

Zoe sighed, shaking her head helplessly as she regarded him. "There are no certainties when treating spinal cord injuries," she reminded him calmly. "People who should never have been able to walk again have. Miracles can and do happen. You could wake up tomorrow and see improvement or it may never improve." She leant in closer, lowering her voice until it was scarcely more than a whisper. "But only half the battle is physical, Peej. You've got to remember that. It's got a lot to do with attitude. And right now, you've got the wrong one."

PJ stared at Zoe, his eyes widening as hints of tears welled within them. His entire body felt as though it were about to implode upon him from the sheer stress of the situation. He opened his mouth to reply, only to find that the words simply wouldn't come.

"Amy loves you. I've only met her on a handful of occasions and it's so obvious how much you mean to her," Zoe continued. "She'll be here for you every single step of the way and so will the rest of us. You've got a lot of mates in this town, a lot of people who are about ready to bend over backwards for you right now. You're not alone. With patience and effort and love…you'll get there, I know it."

Without warning, Zoe suddenly reached forward, wrapping her arms tightly around her husband's best mate. Much to his surprise, PJ found himself responding to Zoe's show of friendship and hugging her back. She was right. For all the times he had tried to encourage his friends to open up and accept help, he was pretty hopeless at taking his own advice.

_I need your grace to remind me_

_To find my own

* * *

_

From beyond the darkness of her closed eyelids, Dash was certain that she could Nick Schultz standing in front of her, hands stuffed into the pockets of his dark police jacket. She opened one eye lazily, regarding him with her weary gaze. "Thanks for showing up this morning," she told him with a weak smile. "Your timing was impeccable."

He chuckled, moving over to lean beside her against the wall outside Phoebe's hospital room. "Hey, like I said, it's all part of the service." He paused, before continuing. "Just don't get too used to Dr. Nick making impromptu house calls."

Dash giggled slightly at this, shaking her head in disbelief. "You haven't changed a bit," she mumbled in response, before her thoughts were interrupted as one of the locum doctors stepped out of her daughter's hospital room. She practically pounced on him, staring up at the poor man with pleading eyes. "Is she going to be okay? Please tell me she's going to be alright…please…"

A slight grin spread across the locum's face as he regarded Dash, nodding slowly. "Phoebe has made a significant recovery," he explained, his words almost making Dash physically jump for joy. "I'd give her a couple more hours to rest here first so we can keep her under observation, but you should be able to take her home tonight."

Relief like none Nick had ever seen before passed through Dash's face. She collapsed back against the wall, burying her face in her hands before daring to look up again, almost as though she was making sure that it wasn't just a dream. "Oh thank God," she breathed, turning to grin up at Nick like a Cheshire cat. "She's alright."

The locum smiled, reaching out to pat Dash's hand kindly. "She's a tough little girl you've got in there, Miss McKinley. A real little fighter."

Nick elbowed Dash in the ribcage gently, causing her to spin to glare at him in annoyance. "Just like her mum, eh?" he pointed out, earning an embarrassed smile from Dash.

She found herself unable to restrain the joy that welled within her. Her little family was okay again.

* * *

Mark yawned heavily as he rose to his feet, trudging slowly off towards the mess room. He'd been alone at the station for the most of the day, what with Dash's daughter in hospital and Nick keeping her company. And Kelly had long headed back to the pub to enjoy her rostered afternoon off. And Amy and Joss…he paused, suddenly realising that he hadn't seen them since Nick had sent them off for coffee early that morning. They'd had to have been missing for several hours.

He was about to race back to his office to try to make contact with them, only for them to emerge from the back entrance, a little blonde girl no older than five in Amy's arms. They froze at the sight of Mark, none of the gathering brave enough to speak for several minutes until little Anne suddenly piped up. "I'm hungry," she croaked, her voice still carrying the remnants of her great choking sobs.

Joss shared a quick glance with Amy before bundling the little girl in his arms, feigning a friendly smile. "I think we might have some Freddo Frogs in the fridge," he told her, putting on an almost child-like voice. "You like Freddo Frogs, don't you?"

"Of course!" she chimed, grabbing a fistful of Joss' jacket in her hands. "They're yummy!"

"Well, let's go get a Freddo Frog then, hey?" he replied, offering Mark and Amy a nervous smile as he turned to head off to the mess room, disappearing from sight just as Mark's frustration spilled off.

"Where the bloody hell were you?!"

Amy sighed heavily, heading off to the CI office to sit down as she spoke, knowing full well that Mark would follow. "Well, Nick sent us off to the supermarket to get some coffee and we encountered a gunman while we were there," she explained. Her words had the desired effect – Mark's jaw had dropped open and he was staring at her wide-eyed. "Joss and I managed to hide in a freezer." She slipped back behind her desk, pulling the laptop towards her.

"Are the two of you alright?" Mark asked, dragging PJ's chair over as he leant forward over Amy's desk.

"Yeah," she replied, heaving another grave sigh as her mind drifted back to the events of that day. "We would have both been suffering from severe hypothermia if Joss hadn't risked his neck to grab some blankets, but we're both alright. We had to leave the freezer when we heard the little girl – Anne – screaming. I found them first. The mother had been killed and he nearly killed Anne and I as well…until Joss showed up and knocked him unconscious with a frozen chicken."

Mark's jaw just about hit the ground. "A frozen chicken?!"

She couldn't hold back a weak chuckle at Mark's response as she bowed her head in thought. "Yeah," she whispered, her smile vanishing quickly. "It's funny what sort of things we come up with when we're backed into a corner with nowhere to run." She paused, her mind suddenly drifting to somewhere else entirely. PJ.

Amy rose to her feet, absentmindedly combing hand from her face as she motioned to the laptop. "I'm going to head over to the hospital, see PJ, you know…" She trailed off, noticing the way Mark nodded. "Do you think you could check births, deaths and marriages, find out who Anne Gregory's father is?"

"Of course," he answered, shooing Amy off towards the door as he took up her seat. "You go see PJ, send him our best."

She smiled back at Mark awkwardly before turning to leave, lowering her head as she thought through the events of the last couple of weeks. She loved him and it was about time she told him.

_I don't quite know how to say how I feel_

_Those three words are said too much_

_They're not enough

* * *

_

PJ lay back in his hospital bed, his left hand resting behind his head as he stared at the photograph in his right. It was fairly recent, taken at the engagement party that Chris had insisted on throwing at the Imperial after he'd proposed to Amy. He had his arms wrapped around her tightly as they both grinned down the camera. If it was possible to die of happiness, then they both would have been dead right there. That night was such a far cry from where he was lying now.

Attitude, he reminded himself quickly. Only half the battle was physical, the other half was going to be a mental battle. He remembered the way Zoe had hugged him, reminding him that it was his friends that would see him through. And Amy – the woman he wanted to marry. The woman he had proposed to not all that long ago.

The sounds of approaching footsteps sent a shiver of surprise through his body. He quickly set the photograph aside, pushing himself up into the soft white pillows behind him as the door opened, exposing the one person he needed to see. "Amy," he breathed, a grin spreading across his face as she slipped in through the crack in the door, pushing it shut silently behind her. He simply opened his arms in a silent gesture for her to join him.

"Peej," she whispered in reply as she quickly crossed the room to him, curling up on the bed beside him as she buried her face in his shoulder. "I've missed you."

He found himself smiling even more broadly as he craned his neck to kiss her forehead tenderly. "I've missed you too," he told her as he pushed himself up a little further, stirring Amy back up into sitting. "I wish I hadn't pushed you away this morning, I could have done with you in physio. It was harder than I'd thought."

"How did it go?" she asked him softly, her voice almost lost in her throat.

He shrugged sadly, tears beginning to threaten to return to his eyes. "Well, I'm pretty good at getting around in that thing," he explained, waving a hand vaguely over towards a wheelchair which sat just centimetres away from his bed. "But other than that, there was nothing."

Amy's expression fell at this. She looked away as she flopped down onto her stomach, burying her head briefly in the scratchy white hospital blankets. She was feeling guilty. If it was anyone's fault, then it was hers. "Oh, PJ…" she moaned, her voice almost on the verge of sobbing.

He reached out to touch her left hand, causing her head to dart up suddenly. "But I spoke to Zoe," he continued, something about his eyes making Amy quite unable to tear her gaze away. "She said that my condition should improve so I can lead a fairly normal life. About the only thing she won't commit herself to is walking. But I'm over moping about it. I'm over feeling sorry for myself and I'm going to get on with living my life." He chuckled, caressing Amy's cheek tenderly. "Anyway, I've got to get a handle on that wheelchair pretty quickly. The sooner I can get around again, the sooner I can marry you."

She giggled weakly as a bright red blush rose into her cheeks. PJ leant forward, drawing her in for a soft and tender kiss. Several seconds later they broke apart, a delicate smile upon Amy's lips. "I love you PJ."

Her words seemed to echo around the hospital room. They seemed to carry a sort of reverence that neither of them felt able to break for several minutes until finally PJ leant in for another kiss. "I love you too, Amy."


	91. Ep 19: His Golden Girl Pt1

**Episode 19: "His Golden Girl"**

**Summary: **_PJ's return home from hospital is complicated when a face from his past makes an untimely return to his life. The town is divided when a supposedly reformed drug dealer takes up residence at the Imperial._

**Part 1**

Amy sat at PJ's bedside, considering her engagement ring with a contented smile as she held PJ's hand within her own. He had just returned from another physiotherapy session and had dozed off in his hospital bed. In the last month or so, a change had passed through her fiancé that was unmistakable. Her old PJ was well and truly back – he was even making the occasional joke about his paralysis to lighten the mood. But he was always very tactful whenever the topic of his wheelchair came up, knowing that the guilt was still playing heavily on Amy's mind.

Zoe seemed to think that he could go home soon. In her medical opinion, PJ was making rapid progress and that there wasn't much to be gained by keeping him in hospital when he could be recovering at home. In fact, Zoe expected PJ to be discharged later that morning. Amy for one couldn't wait to have PJ home. Life might return to some semblance of normal when she wasn't waking up cramped every morning after sleeping in the hospital chairs.

The door to the hospital room creaked open softly and Amy could feel an unfamiliar gaze bearing into the back of her head. She turned to looked hesitantly over her shoulder, only to find her eyes widening in confusion at the sight of the man in the doorway. He was rather old – in his sixties, for sure – and he had a kind of defeated look about him that made Amy's heart melt. But there was also a sense of familiarity, as though she had seen this man somewhere before.

She quickly pulled away from PJ's touch, using her right hand to hurriedly cover her now-unplastered left hand, her engagement ring in particular. She wasn't quite sure who this man was, but she got the feeling that he wasn't someone she'd want to share her engagement with. "I'm sorry, who are you?" she asked him tentatively, narrowing her eyes in confusion as he began to cross the hospital floor towards PJ's sleeping frame.

"His fiancée's father," the man answered in a gruff and almost authoritarian voice that made Amy almost uneasy.

She stared at him hard for a long moment, before the realisation set in. "Pat Doyle?" she gasped in disbelief. "Maggie Doyle's father!"

He turned to stare at her oddly for a few minutes, an eyebrow raised. "And you would be…"

Amy flushed bright red, suddenly realising that she hadn't bothered to tell him who she was or what she was doing there. She rose to her feet, stepping forward as she offered Pat her hand. "I'm Senior Detective Amy Fox," she introduced, "I'm PJ's…ah…" She trailed off, suddenly becoming uncomfortable. She now knew where she'd seen this man before – in newspapers and in rumours from her colleagues. She had only been a detective for a couple of months when Maggie Doyle had been killed and she could distinctly remember the way her new colleagues spoke about the situation, particularly Pat Doyle and how he had murdered his own son in retribution. She didn't really feel that it would be in Pat's best interests to tell him just who she was…yet anyway. "I'm a good friend of PJ's."

"I gathered," Pat told her with a chuckle as he pulled up a hospital chair beside her. He surveyed PJ, shaking his head in disbelief. "Bloody hell," he mumbled, more to himself than Amy. "Poor bastard."

Amy turned to stare at Pat, her heart pounding a little too fast in her chest for comfort. She wasn't quite comfortable with being around Pat, even if he was Maggie Doyle's father. "He just got back from a physiotherapy session," she explained softly. "He's sleeping."

Pat nodded, staring at PJ thoughtfully. "It's not bloody fair," he told her, shaking his head as he continued to regard PJ's sleeping form. "You never knew Maggie Doyle, did you?"

She stared at Pat sadly for a moment, before shaking her head. "No," she admittedly quietly. "No, I didn't. I heard about her, though. And trust me; I'd be a very happy woman if I could be even half the person your daughter was."

Pride crept into Pat's face as he turned to offer Amy a half-smile. As uneasy as she was about Pat and what he'd do if he knew about her relationship with PJ, he did make her feel somewhat comfortable. He was almost Tom-like in that way. "She was my golden girl," he commented in a nostalgic, misty kind of voice that tugged at Amy's heart strings. "She always stood head and shoulders above the rest of us…"

With almost impeccable timing, PJ stirred awake, reaching up with his arms in a weary stretch. "I have to tell you, Amez," he began, not quite awake and certainly not aware of who else was in the room. "That wheelchair makes your arms really bloody sore…" He trailed off, his eyes suddenly widening in horror at the sight that greeted him – Pat Doyle. "Pat?! What the…what are you doing here?" He glanced over to Amy nervously, raising an eyebrow in silent question, only to receive the tiniest of shrugs in response.

"They finally decided that there wasn't much worth in keeping an old bugger like me locked up," Pat replied, a light chuckle underlying his words. "Didn't really have much else to go to, so I figured I'd come check in with you. I didn't know where the new station was, so I stopped off at the Imperial and I find you've been shot!"

PJ nodded awkwardly, using his hands to sit up a little straighter in bed. "Ah, yeah…" he mumbled, chancing a quick glance over at Amy out of the corner of his eye. She was sitting forward in the hospital chair, her hands in her lap and looking almost like a small child. "I'm feeling much better now, though," he explained quickly. "The doctor seems to think that I'll be able to go home today."

Pat regarded him with concern. "Can you manage at home?" he asked him with a raised eyebrow.

"Definitely," he answered quickly, once again glancing over at Amy. "Amy moved in a while ago, she's…ah…my housemate." Just as he finished, Amy looked up to him with critical eyes. It seemed PJ wanted to spare Pat's feelings just as much as she did.

Amy nodded, hastily climbing to her feet and gathering her black suit jacket from the end of PJ's bed. "Well," she declared, combing hair back behind her head with one hand while she attempted to pull her suit jacket on with the other. "I'd better be heading into work, you know, keeping the uniforms in line and all…" She trailed off, her heart sinking heavily in her chest as she turned to leave.

She didn't go far, instead stopping at the end of the corridor and flopping back against the wall. She closed her eyes tiredly as she began to bang her head backwards; a jolt of pain running through her bolt each time it hit the wall. Pat Doyle had been in Mt. Thomas for all of one hour and she already wanted him to leave.

"You'll do that to yourself and then you'll come crawling to me, wondering why you've got the mother of all headaches," Zoe Hamilton observed as she approached Amy, hugging her folder to her chest as she leant sideways against the wall. She surveyed Amy with narrow eyes as the younger woman stood up straight, looking at Zoe with a defeated expression on her face.

"Pat Doyle's back in Mt. Thomas," she confided in exasperation. "And I think PJ and I are pretending we're not engaged." She sighed as she walked away, her head hanging as she headed off towards the car park.

Zoe watched her go, her eyebrows raised in disbelief. Nick would definitely want to hear about this.

* * *

Amy let a loud yawn escape her lips as she sat back at her desk, combing her fingers back through her fringe. She had just about grown it out by now, she realised with a start. Any longer and she'd be having to clip it back. She supposed that in the disaster of the last couple of months, she'd completely neglected anything even remotely related to her hair. She leant forward, studying her reflection in the laptop screen as best she could. No fringe kind of suited her.

The door to the CI office opened with a creak and Amy's head snapped up in surprise. She surveyed Dash as she entered, strands of her own dark hair falling into her eyes. "You looking for something to do?" she asked with a half-smile.

"Hell, yes!" Amy replied, sitting forward with keen interest shimmering in her eyes. "Anything to get me out of my head for a while. Why, what is it?"

"Chris wants someone down at the pub now," Dash explained, nodding vaguely off towards the car park as she spoke. Her dark ponytail bobbed up and down with each head movement, the silky strands catching the light magnificently from the windows. "She thinks she might have a drug dealer staying there."

Amy rose an eyebrow, a beaming smile forming on her lips. This was just what she needed – something juicy to keep her busy and her mind off PJ and Pat. "A drug dealer, eh?" she replied as she jumped to her feet, tidying the creases in her suit. "What is it about Mt. Thomas that makes it so attractive to drug dealers?"

Dash responded to Amy's comment with a chuckle that made Amy's grin broaden. She got the feeling that they were going to get along just fine.

* * *

Chris rolled her eyes at Tony Timms as Amy and Dash entered the Imperial Hotel, watching the scene hesitantly. Tony was sitting at the bar, downing his third lemonade that morning as his new camera rested beside his coaster. Chris was scrubbing the bar's surface, evidently in the middle of a rather heated argument with him.

Tony looked up at the officers' entrance, a scowl crossing his face at the sight of Amy. "You still owe me for that camera!" he told her, folding his arms across his chest. Amy regarded him doubtfully, before realisation crept across her face. Chris snatched the glass from Tony, shooting him a cold glare.

"Leave her alone!" she told him harshly. "You were the one who wanted to call them, remember?"

Dash's eyes narrowed as she shared an uncertain glance with Amy before turning back to Chris and Tony. "What exactly is this about, anyway?"

Tony looked up to Chris, as though he expected her to tell them. She simply shrugged and turned away to shift the bottles of alcohol of the shelves behind her, a silent indication that this was Tony's story, not hers. "I was just in here for a friendly chat with my old friend Chrissie…"

"Friendly chat?" Chris scoffed in indignation, still not turning around. "Interrogate me for updates on PJ's shooting, more like."

Amy narrowed her eyes, once again sharing a disbelieving look with Dash. Neither of them could really comprehend what it was that they were seeing.

"Anyway," Tony continued, almost as though he hadn't heard a word Chris said, "I saw this guy who had checked into the pub last Monday…he's a drug dealer for sure."

"Reformed drug dealer," Chris prompted, glaring back over her shoulder at Tony. Amy and Dash were almost one hundred percent certain that they saw Tony stick his tongue out at Chris in retaliation. "I spoke to him about it and he's reformed. He did his time inside and now he's out. Frankly I'd rather him here where I can keep an eye on him rather than out on the streets where he'd probably start dealing again."

Tony rolled his eyes, arguing back as though Amy and Dash simply weren't there. "There's no such thing as a reformed drug dealer, you ought to know that."

"He's a good kid," Chris pleaded, finally turning back to stare at Tony. "I remember when he was a baby and the sweetheart of the town. He's not your violent, drug dealing thug. He's just a little mixed up, that's all."

An uncomfortable silence fell over the group, before Chris and Tony turned to Dash and Amy, staring at them expectantly. "Well, aren't you going to do something about him?!" they demanded in unison, the overwhelming force of the two combined almost sending Amy and Dash flying back into the opposite wall.

"I don't want him in here," Chris began, waving a hand at Tony, "spreading his lies and crap around all over the place. You two know what he's like; he's a pain in the arse…"

"Well, I don't want that drug dealer in here," Tony retorted, glaring at Chris sternly, "where he can start dealing to our kids and turning Mt. Thomas into a drug haven. I won't stand for it."

Chris rolled her eyes, leaning forward across the bar. "No, you just stand for blemishing the wonderful record of every decent law-abiding citizen in this town and breaking every privacy law known to man…"

Knowing both Chris Riley and Tony Timms well, Dash knew that this was about to get out of hand. Very out of hand. She stepped forward, pulling Tony back from the bar just as Amy slipped in behind it to join Chris. "Look, come on guys," she told them, switching her gaze from one to the other. "We'll be arresting the two of you if you're not careful."

"You know, Chris is right," Amy added quickly. "He's done his time. Unless he does something wrong, there's nothing we can do about it."

Tony rolled his eyes as he climbed to his feet, clutching his camera close to his heart. "Well," he spat back at them from where he now stood in the doorway. "Let's just hope that the people of Mt. Thomas have more of a social conscience than the police!" With that, he stormed outside, slamming the door loudly behind him.

The three females studied the door intently, each of them with their eyes narrowed as they thought through the argument that had just transpired. "Well," Chris declared with a tired and thoroughly fed-up sigh. "Who wants to bet that we'll be reading all about this in tomorrow's Gazette?"

Amy looked to Chris in agreement, nodding as a weary smile spread across her face. "How much would you be willing to lose?"

* * *

PJ felt his heart beating ever faster in his chest as he crossed the threshold of his home, everything feeling quite unfamiliar and new from his new position. However, more disconcerting was the presence of Pat Doyle behind him, trying to lug along almost twice his body weight in bags behind him, despite PJ's protests. He hadn't been home in so long that he'd almost forgotten just how many reminders of Amy there were around the place. He just prayed that they hadn't left anything obvious around the place. In the short time that Pat had been back in town, he'd managed to work out that he wasn't coping. Almost every second sentence seemed to refer to Maggie Doyle and it was beginning to grate on PJ's nerves. Here he was, at the one point in his life where he needed to be looking to the future and Pat was dragging him back into the past.

"It's a bit…ah…messy…" PJ mumbled as he struggled to reach up to the light switch from his sitting position. He eventually managed it just as Pat overtook him in the hallway. "Amy and I haven't really been home much…"

Pat stopped in the living room, dumping the bags in front of the old couch. He bent over with a slight groan of discomfort, studying the photographs on the coffee table keenly. "You said she's your housemate," he prompted, picking one up. As PJ drew closer, he could see that it was from Ben's farewell. Thankfully, not one of the more incriminating pictures.

"Yeah, she is," PJ replied slowly, desperately praying that Pat's old copper sense wasn't picking up on the hint of uncertainty in his voice. "She arrived in town after the old station was destroyed. She's been a good friend; we've both helped each other through tough times."

Pat nodded, sighing resignedly as he set the photo back on the coffee table. "They kept forcing me to see this prison shrinks while I was inside," he told PJ gruffly. "They were all the same ignorant do-gooders who have no bloody idea about how life works. They kept telling me that life goes on, that I have to put Maggie and the rest of it in the past. Bloody bullshit."

PJ paused, contemplating Pat cautiously. "Not all shrinks are that bad," he pointed out quietly. "I started seeing one a few years ago. We already knew each other from a case a while before and grief counselling wasn't really his forte, but it helped."

"You know what," Pat replied, a tiny smile creeping across his face. "You've been living with a woman for too long. Trust me, that touchy feely crap rubs off on you after a while. Mags would have done the same to you if she'd had time…" He trailed off, his voice becoming filled with regret and sadness. "That's part of the reason I came here, you know. Figured you were the only person who'd understand it. Life doesn't go on without our golden girl. It just doesn't."

PJ gulped before eventually nodding reluctantly. His heart began racing even faster in his chest. He couldn't decide whether or not he and Amy were doing the right thing in hiding their relationship from him. Perhaps the kinder thing would have been to tell him straight up that he had found a way to move on from Maggie, even if Pat couldn't.

"It's too quiet," Pat commented, heading over to the kitchen. "Maybe we should get the radio on. You don't get too much of that rapping crap up here, do you?"

Once again, PJ found himself unable to answer. He wheeled himself into the kitchen after Pat and opened the fridge, hoping that Amy had bought something sweet and sugary to make up for the healthy hospital food he had been eating. However, all thoughts of food were promptly erased when he heard the news flash on the radio.

"Radio 3SD has recently learned that a supposedly 'reformed' drug dealer is residing at the Imperial Hotel," the newsreader announced. "We consider this to be a moral outrage and are happy to field any discussion you have on the issue in our Talkback Hour in fifteen minutes' time…"

Pat switched the radio off with an angry calmness that surprised PJ. He studied Pat worriedly as he pushed the fridge door shut with some difficultly, not quite willing to tear his gaze away from his almost-father-in-law. "Pat…" he probed, gripping at the wheels of his chair tentatively.

"Bloody drug dealing scum!" Pat grumbled, storming out of the kitchen and out into the living room. As PJ heard him flop backwards into the couch, he buried his face in his hands.

"Maggie…" he moaned under his breath in a kind of complaint, as though she might somehow reappear and calm her father down as she used to. However, he knew it was useless and soon returned to the living room to do the job himself.


	92. Ep 19: His Golden Girl Pt2

**Part 2**

Lyrics in this part are from _"Who Knew"_ by Pink.

Dash rapped loudly on the door of the CI office, disturbing Amy from her early-afternoon nap. She almost cleared the ceiling as she leapt forward, hurriedly tidying her hair with her hair while she wiped at her eyes with the other. "Sorry," Dash apologised with a hint of cheekiness in her grin. "Didn't mean to wake you."

Amy offered Dash a smile as her heart calmed in her chest and she motioned for her to pull up PJ's seat next to her desk. The younger officer complied. "Don't mention it," she told her. "I can't wait until PJ goes home. It'll be nice to sleep in my own bed for a change."

"Yeah, I know how sleeping in hospital chairs feels," Dash responded with a chuckle. "When Phoebe was first diagnosed with asthma, I spent so many nights curled up in the chair at her bedside…she couldn't have been more than six months old at the time." She sighed, finding herself yawning just as Amy did the same. "Wow, yawning is infectious," she observed.

The simplicity of the statement brought a laugh across Amy's face. A real, light and breezy kind of laugh that made Dash's heart skip a beat in her chest. She'd spent much of the last couple of months observing Amy from the outside, not quite sure what to make of her new colleague. But she now realised that Amy was a really nice person, if a little cagey at times. Then again, everyone in Mt. Thomas seemed to be a bit like that.

"It is, isn't it?" Amy remarked as a cheerful glint passed through her eyes. "Maybe the scientists should abandon the quest for the cure for the common cold and find the cure for yawning instead."

"It'd improve productivity," Dash replied, her eyes returning Amy's twinkle. She paused, finally deciding that maybe she should probe a little. "Nick got a phone call from Zoe a little earlier. I might be going deaf in my young age, but I could have sworn that he mentioned Pat Doyle's name…"

Amy sighed, the exuberance disappearing almost instantly to be replaced by a steely resignedness. "He probably did," she explained as she leant in closer, just in case anyone else was listening in. Although she highly doubted that they would – Kelly and Joss had long since given up their old habits, something which depressed her somewhat. "He showed up at the hospital this morning. PJ and I are pretending we're not engaged to try to…I don't know, spare his feelings I suppose."

"He is a grown man, you know," Dash reminded her gently. "You and PJ don't have to look out for him."

"I know, I know," Amy replied, beginning to bite her bottom lip absentmindedly as she stopped to stare at the most recent picture of her and PJ, taken at their engagement party. It was beginning to feel as though it were a lifetime ago. "It's just…PJ still cares about him and Maggie in his own kind of way and I guess he's just trying to protect his feelings."

Dash nodded, sighing in understanding. "I don't know how long you two think you can keep it up for…I mean, you're getting married for heaven's sake!"

Amy looked down to her engagement ring, contemplating it with narrowed eyes that almost brimmed with tears. "Doesn't feel like it, does it?" Noticing Amy's obvious sadness, Dash reached up to wrap her arms around her colleague's shoulders, squeezing her tightly. "Sorry," Amy apologised with a teary laugh. "It's just that…if Lloyd Johnson hadn't shown up, we'd probably be off arguing about wedding venues right now." She chuckled weakly as she pulled away, desperately mopping at her tears with her right hand. "Such as life, I suppose."

"Where's Pat staying, anyway?" Dash asked, leaning forward across the corner of Amy's desk as she stared at her colleague intently. There was a certain country-ness about Dash that Amy recognised instantly. It was the look in her eyes, the one that said that she was actually interested in what people were saying, unlike the disinterested token conversation she knew well from the city.

She shrugged thoughtfully. "The pub, I suppose," she replied. "Then again, knowing PJ, he'll probably end up staying at our place."

"That could possibly be a good thing," Dash explained, waving a hand off towards the radio sitting out in the muster room. "Tony Timms is up to his old tricks…he's gone and told the newsreader at 3SD about the drug dealer at the pub. Most of the town would know by now."

Amy studied Dash hard, shaking her head in misunderstanding. "How exactly does this relate to Pat Doyle, though?"

Dash leaned in closer, lowering her voice to scarcely a whisper. "Pat's had it in for drug dealers ever since his son Robbie got addicted to heroin," she explained. "It only got worse after Maggie died…" She trailed off, gulping as tears momentarily clouded her eyes at the mention of her old best friend. She somehow dismissed them as Amy's stare grew more intense. "You do know that he killed his own son because he killed Maggie, don't you?"

Amy's eyes widened at Dash's question before she nodded slowly. "Yeah," she replied. "It hit Organised Crime pretty quickly. I was only new to the big time back then, but I remember everyone talking about the old copper who killed his own son in retribution…" She paused, horror creeping across her face. "You don't think Pat would do anything too stupid…do you?"

"Amy," Dash pointed out, her eyes attaining a kind of misty quality, as though her mind was drifting back to a different place and time. "If there's one thing that every Doyle I've ever met has had in common, then it's a stubborn bloody-mindedness that always gets them in trouble. If it wasn't for that particular personality trait Maggie, Robbie and Mick would probably all still be alive today."

* * *

PJ startled awake where he lay on the couch at the sound of his front door slamming shut. He went to leap to his feet defensively, only to really that it was still as impossible as ever. He rolled his eyes in annoyance as he pushed himself up with his arms, craning his neck to see who had entered. It was Pat Doyle. "Where did you go?" he asked; his tone expectant and almost reminiscent of a reprimanding parent.

Pat regarded him with his typical grumpy expression, the one that hid his true feelings away from the rest of the world. "Out," he grumbled in reply, joining PJ on the couch as the younger man used his arms to put his feet back on the floor. "I shouldn't have stormed out before. Sorry."

PJ nodded hesitantly, his mind quickly jumping to the drug dealer that 3SD had spoken off and the news report that had sent Pat Doyle storming out of the house. "You didn't go anywhere near the pub, did you?"

"Of course bloody not!" Pat replied, staring at PJ in disbelief. "I've just spent eight and a half years in a jail cell for murder, do you really bloody think I'd get myself thrown back in there?!"

"Of course not," PJ mumbled under his breath as he watched Pat rise to his feet and storm off to the kitchen with critical eyes. After everything he'd seen over the years, he wouldn't have put it past him.

* * *

Chris slumped back against the bar, momentarily pausing to wipe some sweat away from underneath her thick curly fringe. As she gaze a resentful glare up to the old fan, she found herself cursing the repairman. She'd only gotten him in a week ago and it was already broken. She remembered with a pang that Tom Croydon had once been rather skilled at keeping the old pub fans going, as opposed to most of the so-called professionals she'd come across. It was the little things that made her heart pain the most for her old friends, especially with the first anniversary of Tom's murder approaching painfully fast.

_When someone said 'count your blessings now_

_Before they're long gone'_

_I guess I just didn't know how_

Almost from nowhere, a loud ear-splitting screech sounded, causing several of the patrons to let out cries of fright. Even Chris nearly jumped onto the bar in surprise. She set the glass she had been cleaning down on an old bar towel as she headed up the stairs to the rooms, recognising it as one of the old smoke alarms. It was probably malfunctioning, she realised with a sigh. Just like everything else in the pub these days.

However, her cursing was soon ended when she noticed dark, putrid smoke filtering out into the hallway through the gap under the door of room three. She jumped back in surprise as she raced down the corridor to the fire extinguisher and returned, throwing the door open without a second though.

Chris was suddenly struck by an overwhelming warm cloud of thick smoke that made breathing difficult. However, through the smoke she could see a rather small fire brewing on the bed clothes. She managed to extinguish it without much difficultly before drawing back to assess the damage done. The window was smashed and the blankets and sheets of the bed badly damaged, but the room was otherwise fine.

Except, she realised with a devastated sigh, for the soot that clung to every single thing in the room that she was going to have to clean.

* * *

The shards of broken glass crunched under Amy's boots as she crossed the pub room, finally stopping on the other side of the bed nearest the window. She quickly crouched down, studying something on the floor intently that remained out of view for Dash and Chris where they stood in the doorway. Finally, Amy looked up over the damaged bed. "Dash, Chris," she called, waving them over with a blue gloved hand.

The pair joined her, only to discover that Amy was holding the remnants of a glass bottle in her other hand. She looked down to it before looking up to the other women. "Textbook Molotov cocktail," she explained, motioning for Dash to hand her over a bag. She quickly sealed it before standing up. "Arson will probably check the place over again just to be sure, but it looks like a typical Molotov cocktail to me."

Dash took the bag from Amy's hands and began studying the bottle remains intently. "How would someone throw a Molotov cocktail through a window this high off the ground?" she queried, not looking up.

Amy waved a hand over towards the window as Chris followed it with her gaze. "There's a large bin outside," she explained, "and a pipe. Or they might just have a bloody good throwing arm. She checked the room over again before heading over to the doorway, slipping underneath the police tape as Chris and Dash followed. Once out in the hallway, she turned back to the publican. "Do you know whose room this is?"

Chris opened her mouth to reply, only for a suddenly realisation to strike her. She began shaking her head, a kind of anger crossing her face. "Bloody Tony Timms, he'll be lucky if he's allowed back in here by the time he's ninety…"

Amy and Dash shared a curious stare, before the same realisation hit them too. "The drug dealer?" Dash exclaimed in disbelief, turning to stare at Chris intently.

Chris nodded slowly as she headed back downstairs, the two police officers following closely behind. "This will be Tony Timms' doing, mark my words."

"Can we have a name for this drug dealer?" Amy asked, opening her blue police folder as she quickly drew out a pen.

"Yeah, I suppose," Chris replied, nodding to herself. "His name's Gregory Jackson. He's a good kid. He grew up in this town...you probably wouldn't remember him though, Dash. He was a little before your time. He's out at Widgeree visiting his grandmother at the moment, though. If I were you, I'd be going after Tony Timms first."

"Don't worry," Amy assured her as she quickly noted everything that Chris had told her down. "We plan to."

* * *

"This is an outrage!" Tony cried, struggling against Nick and Joss' grip as they physically dragged him to the interview room. He was close to kicking and screaming. "I demand to see my lawyer!"

Amy rolled her eyes as she followed the group down the station corridor, Dash in close pursuit. "You're not under arrest, Mr. Timms," she explained in a cold and rather detached voice. "You're here because you're the one who made such a fuss about Gregory Jackson being here."

Nick and Joss deposited Tony on the interview room chair as Amy and Dash followed them inside. Amy nodded to the men. "Thanks, we can take it from here."

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" Nick asked, approaching Amy and Dash as Joss left the room quickly. "I mean, we don't want Timmsy getting violent…"

"I'm sure we can manage, Nicholas," Dash interjected, earning a harsh look from Nick as he nodded. He crept back towards the door nodding as a small grin lit up his face.

"I'll just leave you to it then, Deidre," he replied with a chuckle as he closed the door, his heavy footfalls echoing down the corridor back towards the muster room. Dash fumed silently at Nick's comment, before slipping in beside Amy on the other side of the table to Tony.

Amy opened her folder, skimming over the details Chris had given them briefly before looking up to Tony with a slight hint of pleasure creeping across her face. It wasn't everyday that the police got to get their own back against Tony Timms. "Are you aware that room three of the Imperial Hotel was vandalised earlier today?"

Tony rolled his eyes, keeping one hand clenched protectively around his camera while he stared off somewhere in the distance. "Well, that was part of the mantra you used when you dragged me in here kicking and screaming, wasn't it?" he replied, staring at the two officers out of the corner of his eye. "Molotov cocktail, right?"

"I gather you're also aware that room three is Gregory Jackson's room then?" Dash told him, folding her arms across her chest as she leant back in her chair.

"Well, yes," Tony pointed out. "You just told me, didn't you?"

Amy rolled her eyes, leaning across the desk as her voice and eyes attained a kind of steely iciness that was almost worse than if she'd chosen to yell. "Listen to me you stupid man," she told him in a bitter voice. "We're not talking about a little bit of teenage vandalism here. We're talking serious arson charges. Whoever threw that cocktail could have burned the entire pub down. They could have killed someone. I'm not here to play stupid games with you and if that's what you think you're going to be doing, then I'll charge you right now with hindering police and then see how much you want to keep up this stupidity. Understood?"

He gulped, obviously unprepared for Amy's remarks. He nodded, drawing away a little as he clutched his camera closer to his chest, as though he feared Amy would destroy it just as she had his last one. "I didn't throw the cocktail," he told them, appealing to Dash for sympathy. "I…I did tell the newsreader at 3SD. We're old mates and it just came up in conversation…everyone in Mt. Thomas would know by now…I'm not the only one who'd want to keep drug dealers out of here…"

Dash nodded, looking up to Amy to check if another rant like the one before was about to transpire. It wasn't. "Where were you about half an hour ago?" she asked quietly, leaning forward slowly.

"Half an hour ago?" Tony asked, scratching his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I was…well…do I have to tell you?"

Amy rose an eyebrow, quite unable to believe what she was hearing. "Well, if you'd like to avoid serious prison time for arson, then I'd highly recommend it."

Tony gulped, switching his gaze from Dash to Amy and back again very slowly before nodding and replying in a very small voice. "I was out on a date."

Dash almost fell out of her chair in shock. The local within her couldn't believe what it was hearing. "You?" she demanded in disbelief. "A date? Who with? Where? What happened? It is a girl, right…"

Amy kicked her abruptly under the desk, silencing Dash's tirade of questions. She narrowed her eyes as she studied Tony, nodding slowly in response to his alibi. "We'll need her name," she explained as she noted this down in her folder. "We'll need to see if she confirms your story." She stared at Tony expectantly, only to notice that he seemed reluctant to reply. "Mr. Timms?"

He gave an unintelligible mumble in reply, which only earned him further stares of annoyance and contempt. "Fine," he grumbled, letting his head flop forward onto the desk. "Lee Cruikshank."


	93. Ep 19: His Golden Girl Pt3

**Part 3**

Lyrics in this part come from _"I Love You Always Forever" _by Donna Lewis.

Amy tried to contain her laughter as she hung up the phone. She looked up to Dash, who was staring down at her expectantly. "Lee Cruikshank backed up his alibi," Amy explained, shaking her head in disbelief. "God, those two are pains in the arse on their own, let alone together."

Dash nodded, watching as Amy rose to her feet to pace the office, biting her bottom lip absentmindedly as she did so. She'd only known Amy for a short period of time, but she was already beginning to recognise some of her typical body language. "So what do we do now?" she asked, perching herself on the corner of PJ's desk.

Amy stopped, staring at Dash blankly. "We pray that Tony and Lee's relationship never produces children," she replied, a hint of a smile beginning to play on her face. At Dash's weak chuckle, she sighed and slumped back against the wall. "I suppose we can wait and see if the Forensics can lift any fingerprints from the bottle, but if they're even semi-professional or have ever seen an episode of _CSI_, then they'll have worn gloves."

"What about Gregory Jackson?" Dash asked, with a raised eyebrow. "Maybe he'll know who did this."

Amy shook her head slowly. "Way ahead of you," she explained with a sigh. "Chris rang him after we left and he's got no idea who did this. He's not coming back to Mt. Thomas though – he's staying on in Widgeree." She buried her face in her hands. "We've got absolutely nothing. Even if we do get prints, unless it's someone on file then we're going to have to fingerprint the whole town to find the culprit. Bloody Tony, why did he have to tell the whole bloody town about this?"

"Because you know Timmsy," PJ's voice replied from the doorway out to the charge counter and back entrance. "He can't resist a scandal."

Amy lowered her hands, relief flooding through her body at the sight of her fiancé. He was sitting in his wheelchair, surveying his female colleagues from the doorway. He quickly made his way over to Amy, whipping her across his lap. She chuckled lightly, blushing bright red. "I thought you were baby-sitting Pat Doyle."

"I was," he told her with a slow nod. "But then I heard on the radio about the Molotov cocktail in that drug dealer's room and…well, thought I'd give you another suspect."

Amy laughed bitterly as her smile vanished rapidly. "Forget another suspect," she told him harshly. "We'd like just one who wasn't imagining Lee Cruikshank naked at the time."

PJ stared at her with a confused expression, before shaking it off. "Look, if Pat asks then it didn't come from me, but…he stormed out of the house after hearing that there was a drug dealer at the Imperial and didn't get home until just before the arson attack was announced," he explained in a barely audible whisper. "If you're really desperate for someone to chat to, he might just be the culprit."

Pat stared across at Amy, shaking his head in disbelief. "This is a joke," he told her firmly. "This is a bloody joke. That guy is a drug dealing bastard who has probably ruined families and lives and jobs and you're sitting here threatening to charge me with arson!"

Amy sighed as she looked over at Nick. Unlike with Tony Timms, she hadn't been able to convince Nick that she didn't need him to help out with the interview. Instead, Dash had headed off to the Imperial with Kelly and Joss to search for more evidence and suspects. Amy prayed that they'd come up with another lead besides Pat Doyle because, quite frankly, she wasn't enjoying one second of this interview and didn't imagine she'd enjoy charging him anymore.

Nick leant forward, his cool, bully composure keeping the room oddly calm. "Well, you see Pat," he began, studying Pat Doyle through narrowed eyes, "he did his time. As far as the law's concerned, he's reformed. Someone threw a Molotov cocktail through his window, so they go down for arson…"

"I don't need lectures about how the law works from people like you, Nick Schultz," Pat grumbled. "I didn't throw any Molotov cocktail, so you two would be much better off going and actually catching the real criminal…"

Amy leant forward, staring at Pat sympathetically. Just twenty minutes ago, she had been all for questioning Pat Doyle. He had been the perfect suspect. But now it just seemed wrong. Interviewing him was almost like interviewing her own grandfather. "Look, Pat, I don't want to charge you," she told him gently. "But look at it from our point of view. You'd be able to get the means easily enough, you've got more motive than anyone else in this town and you've got opportunity. By rights, we could have charged you already…"

"And I don't need your sympathy either," Pat told Amy harshly, glaring at her coldly. She sat back in her chair, wishing that she was anywhere else but there in that interview room. "You two have spent so much playing things by the book that you've forgotten what the real world looks like. Pull yourselves out of your own arses and realise that drug dealers don't bloody change. There's no such thing as a reformed drug dealer…just one who's waiting for the right moment to ruin more lives…"

"If you don't settle down, then we'll have to charge you," Amy explained, shaking her head sadly. "Please…I don't believe you did that, but you're our only suspect. You're our only lead. If you just take things calmly and rationally, then we can just get this over and done with and get back to finding the real arsonist…"

Pat rose to his feet, staring the two officers down. "If you've got anything real to go on, then charge me," he dared them in a bitter voice. "Otherwise, I'm leaving." He moved to open the door out into the corridor, only to Nick to pre-empt it and push it shut again just as quickly. He glared up at the taller police officer coldly, before turning to Amy where she stood behind the desk in the interview room.

"Fine," Amy told him, her voice almost catching in her throat. She didn't like what she was doing and her gut was telling her that she was charging the wrong guy, but she had to do something. Anything to keep the only lead she had right where she needed him. "Patrick Doyle, you're being charged with hinder a police investigation and arson. Is there anything you wish to say in response to these charges?"

Pat nodded, glaring at Amy as her stomach turned. "Yeah, there is," he grumbled with a nod. "Maggie would be rolling in her grave to see what kind of shithole you're running here."

* * *

PJ stared at Amy in disbelief, his eyes wide and his jaw dropped open. "You did what?!" he demanded at the top of his voice. He watched as Amy slipped in behind her desk, staring at him coolly in response.

She shrugged. "I charged Pat Doyle with arson and hinder police."

He shook his head, clutching the wheels of his chair. "You weren't meant to charge him!" he snapped quickly in reply. "I just wanted you to get to the truth about what he was doing and prove me wrong…I didn't mean charge him!"

Amy looked at him pointedly, folding her arms across her chest as she leant forward over her desk. "Well, what did you expect me to do?" she asked him. "He has means, motive and opportunity, refused to answer questions and then basically told Nick and I to charge him. He's a suspect, PJ, or did you forget that?"

PJ buried his face in his hands, hanging his head dismally. "Oh God," he mumbled, before peering out between his fingers. "What exactly do you propose to do with him now?"

"Wait and see what Forensics come up with, I suppose," she replied, shrugging again thoughtfully. "Then, if the prints are a match, I'll send him over to the arson detectives in Melbourne. Otherwise…I suppose we go back to square one."

She narrowed her eyes as she realised PJ was still shaking his head. He finally lowered his hands, grabbing at the wheels of his chair. "You can't honestly let Pat Doyle face a magistrate over these charges," he told her in a highly emotional tone. "He's only out on parole, he'll go back inside if they even suspect that he's back to his old tricks." He closed the gap between them, staring probingly into her eyes. "Are you sure there's nothing even slightly personal to this?"

Amy stared at him hard, before her expression softened. As PJ drew closer, he reached out to loop his arm around her waist, drawing her smoothly over into his lap. A tender smile crept across Amy's lips as she leant back against PJ's chest, wrapping her arms around his neck as he held her close to his heart. She sighed, closing her eyes momentarily as she revelled in the closeness of their bodies. "We're meant to be getting married, Peej," she reminded him forlornly. "This is meant to be the happiest time of our lives. We're meant to be…arguing over wedding vows and I'm meant to be off trying to pick a wedding dress while you get a suit…I hate this. I hate what's been happening to us."

PJ pulled her ever closer as she raised her head from his shoulder, staring into his gentle blue eyes. "It'll get better," he assured her with an affectionate caress. "We'll be back on track with wedding planning before you know it." He leant forward, pressing his lips against hers softly before drawing away. "You're my everything, Amy. That won't change whether we get married in one week or one decade." He ran a tender hand along her cheekbone as the smile broadened upon Amy's lips.

"I love you, PJ," she whispered, the honesty in her voice clear and her words charged with pure emotion.

"Yes," PJ replied with a chuckle, pulling Amy closer as his eyes sparkled with joy. "I find myself strangely attracted to you, too."

Amy laughed as she reached up, cupping PJ's face in her hands as a bright red blush rose into her cheeks. "You're an idiot, PJ," she told him with a laugh as she kissed him lovingly, which he reciprocated quickly. The moment was so pure and electric that it left Amy and PJ with the odd sense of time completely coming to a halt, almost as though they were the only ones alive. It was a serene feeling that made them both immediately comfortable, as though nothing else could go wrong.

_Feels like I'm standing in a timeless dream_

_Of light mists, of pale amber rose_

_Feels like I'm lost in a deep cloud of heavenly scent_

_Touching, discovering you_

"Bastard!"

Amy jumped so high at the sound that she almost crashed into her desk. She leapt off PJ's lap, combing strands of dark hair from her eyes as she craned her neck to see who it was that had shouted. She narrowed her eyes as her heart pounded with alarm in her chest. The alarm was only worsened when she caught sight of a man storming away, slamming every door that he could find on his way to the station exit.

"Pat Doyle," she breathed as PJ spun himself around, using his arms to push himself up as high as he could to get a good look.

He looked up to her, his eyes wide in concern as Amy sat back against her desk, hiding her eyes behind her right hand, shaking her head. Her expression was one of hopelessness and annoyance. It was clear to him that Amy was increasingly coming to see Pat Doyle's presence in their lives as nothing less than a supreme pain.

It suddenly struck him how this would look to Pat. "Oh God," he gasped in horror. "Someone's got to stop him."

Amy turned her gaze from where Pat had once been down to PJ's troubled face. She let her head fall to one side as she regarded him in curiosity. "Stop him?" she quizzed inquisitively. "Why? Where would he be going?"

PJ wheeled himself closer to Amy, reaching up to place his hand upon her knee. "He's never really dealt with the grief of losing his kids," he explained, his eyes welling with tears. "When he got parole, he came back to Mt. Thomas because he thought I'd be the only one who'd understand him. He thought I'd still be grieving for Maggie like he is. And I was stupid enough to let him continue to believe that."

Her eyes narrowed as her gaze grew more intense. "So what do you think he'd do?" she asked, although she somehow got the feeling she knew what the answer was already.

"He's got nothing left," PJ told her pointedly. "His wife's dead, his sons are dead, his golden girl's dead…He's got no career, no credentials and a criminal record…What do you think he'd do?"

Amy felt a horrible lump of bile rise into her throat as she nodded in understanding. She didn't need to ask PJ what exactly Pat was likely to do. She already knew – she'd seen enough of it in Melbourne. People who had nothing left in the world to live for who finally decided that death was the better option.

She leapt to her feet, snatching the CI car keys up from her desk as she headed for the muster room. "Where do you think he'd be headed?" she asked, only to earn a confused stare from PJ. "I'm going to find him," she explained quickly. "I caused this mess; I'm going to fix it. Where do you think he'd be headed?"

"Ah…" PJ trailed off, shaking his head as he cast his mind over eight years back in time. "I suppose he might head for the rail yards. That's where Maggie was killed…"

"Thanks," Amy replied as she turned on her heel and disappeared, her voice echoing through the station and back to PJ as she called out to Nick to join her on her search.


	94. Ep 19: His Golden Girl Pt4

**Part 4**

Amy bit her bottom lip nervously as she gripping at the seatbelt over her chest so tightly that her knuckles were well and truly white. Her heart pounded so fiercely that she was surprised that it hadn't burst forth from her chest. A horrible sick feeling ran through her body as she regarded the rail yards with curiosity as Nick pulled the patrol car to a stop. He turned to follow her gaze as he undid his seatbelt, his voice calm, yet with a niggling sense of discomfort. "You and PJ don't seriously think that Pat Doyle of all people would kill himself, do you?" he asked hesitantly as Amy's head snapped to him with a start.

She found herself sighing heavily as sadness crept into her voice. "I hope we're wrong," she told him softly as she climbed out of the car. She looked up at him over the top of the patrol car sirens as he climbed out after her. "Look, we'll split up." She stared off towards the mess of run-down trains that littered the vast rail yards before her. "I just hope we're not too late to stop him from killing himself."

Nick jogged over to Amy's side, clapping her shoulder encouragingly with a firm, yet gentle hand. "It wouldn't be your fault if he has," he reminded her in an emotionless voice. "If someone really wants to do away with themselves, there's not a lot you or anybody else will be able to do about it."

"Maybe," Amy mumbled in reply as she took off at a jog, her hair flying along behind her as she disappeared behind a nearby derelict train as her footfalls on the gravel echoed back to Nick.

He sighed as he took off in the opposite direction, his heart pounding in his chest. He just prayed that, if Pat had managed to take his own life, Amy wouldn't be the one to find his body.

* * *

Amy jogged between two large trains, the bile rising up into her throat. She couldn't dismiss the sickening feeling in her stomach no matter how hard she tried. Despite Nick's attempts to assure her that this was unavoidable, she knew that he was wrong. What Pat had been feeling when he'd first arrived in Mt. Thomas, she had surely made it a whole lot worse.

The train to her left hand side finally gave way to a small clearing, where a couple of small trees had sprouted up from almost nowhere. She froze at the sudden change of scenery, the rail yards becoming oddly silent as the gravel stopped crunching beneath her feet. From somewhere beyond the clearing, she could hear a hoarse whisper which she quickly realised was a prayer that she recalled from her childhood.

She slowly crept across the clearing, placing a hand defensively against a nearby train surface. She was finding herself increasingly scared of what she'd find. She bit her bottom lip anxiously as she finally peered around the corner, catching sight of Pat Doyle standing in a small alcove between two run-down trains, contemplating the hand gun before him. He was mumbling to himself – the prayer Amy had heard earlier.

She stared at him, quite unsure of what to say before deciding with the first thing that came into her head. "I never could remember that prayer," she admitted, the soft sound of her voice causing Pat's head to snap up sharply and a curse to escape his lips. "My aunt tried to teach it to me once. I never really got the hang of the religion thing." She shrugged as she stuffed her hands into the pockets of her black suit jacket, stepping hesitantly towards him.

He regarded her with contempt, glancing back to his gun momentarily. "Bugger off," he grumbled, his words almost slurring together. The waver in his voice told Amy that he was crying, even though his cheeks were dry. "Just bugger off back to PJ bloody Hasham."

"Why?" Amy asked, leaning back against one of the trains that cut them off from the rest of the world. "So you can stick a bullet in your head? End it all? I'm sure Maggie would have really wanted to see her beloved father kill himself."

"Bugger off!" Pat snapped again, shaking his head in disbelief. "This has got nothing to do with you. It's not your problem."

She narrowed her eyes, shaking her head at Pat's comment. "No," she told him gently. "It is my problem. My fiancé is back at the police station, tearing himself to shreds over this. It makes it absolutely my problem. And even if you weren't such a big part of PJ's life, it'd still be my problem because you're meant to be in police custody right now."

Pat stared at her, put off-guard by Amy's stubbornness. He sighed, contemplating his gun thoughtfully while Amy watched him with increasingly nervous eyes. "Just let me do it," he begged her quietly, his voice weak and quivering. "I destroyed them. All of them…Kathleen, Maggie, Robbie, even bloody Mick…I can't stop the hurt. I can't stop myself loving them. I thought PJ felt the same. Turns out he doesn't."

Amy felt her heart twang at Pat's words, striking a chord with her own emotions. She drew close to him, placing a gentle hand upon his arm soothingly. "PJ loved Maggie in a different way to you," she pointed out, staring imploringly into his almost unseeing eyes. "You're Maggie's father. It's a different kind of love to what PJ had for her. You can't be expected to just turn that off."

"How would you bloody know?" Pat demanded, staring at Amy with desperate eyes. "You don't have kids."

"No," Amy admitted, nodding slowly. "I don't. And I probably never will have them, either. But I had a father. A father who I loved and adored and practically worshipped for the precious eight years I had him in my life."

He found himself meeting Amy's gaze, his own heart sinking in sympathy as he noticed the pain in her eyes. "Where is he now?" he asked quietly, not really needing to ask.

"He…he died," Amy explained, shrugging as small tears of grief welled in her eyes. "My parents were killed in a car accident when I was young. It taught me something, though. Something I think you've forgotten." She leant in closer to him, tightening her grip on his arm. "Daughters never, ever stop loving their fathers," she pointed out in a firm and determined voice. "And it works both ways."

Pat stared at her hard for a long moment, before eventually conceding that he had nothing left to counter with. Amy paused, before reaching out to Pat with her other hand. "Give me the gun, Pat," she told him, watching in surprise as he willingly complied.

She realised that there was something different about his demeanour as he slid down to the ground, his eyes wide and his whole body trembling ever so slightly. It honestly scared her, yet was somehow reassuring at the same time. She could see that her words had brought a strong change over him.

"She was my golden girl," Pat whispered, his voice breaking up into great choking sobs which brought Amy to the verge of her own tears in sympathy. "She could do no wrong. About the only thing she ever did wrong was care too much."

Amy nodded as she tucked Pat's gun into her belt, slipping down beside him. She brought her knees up to her chin, cradling them to her chest as she regarded Pat with sadness shimmering in her eyes. "I know," she told him in reply, her heart pounding awfully fast in her chest. "I never knew Maggie, but I've heard so much about her. I meant what I said at the hospital earlier today. I'd be honoured to be even half the copper your daughter ever was."

"From what I've heard, you're already in a league of your own," Pat responded, a tiny smile playing on his lips. Amy's brow furrowed in confusion. "PJ said quite a bit about you while he was 'baby-sitting' me," he elaborated. "And I've even come across a couple of the crims you put away while I was still in prison. Even they have to admit that you're damn good at what you do."

A bright red blush rose into Amy's cheeks as she looked away, momentarily speechless. A tiny chuckle of embarrassment escaped her lips. "Thank you," she told him, looking back to him as her expression softened once again and all traces of a smile vanished from Pat's face. "If it's any consolation, PJ still misses Maggie."

Pat turned to her in surprise, raising an eyebrow curiously. "But he's in a relationship with you now…"

"And I'm not the first since Maggie, either," Amy interrupted with a slow nod. "But PJ loved Maggie so much. I don't have to have known your daughter to know that. He'll never forget her and he'll always love her in his own kind of way. It's like I said – he loved her in a different way."

He narrowed his eyes as he stared at her, his trembling and sobbing having subsided somewhat. "Don't you worry about PJ's relationship history sometimes?" he asked. "Don't you ever wonder if maybe you're just playing second fiddle to someone you never even knew?"

Amy sighed, leaning back against the train. She closed her eyes before opening them to stare up at the blue sky above her. "I used to, sometimes," she replied, a little smile spreading across her face. It took Pat several seconds to realise that there was a touch of confidence in her smile. "But I've realised that he loves me and that he's dedicated to our relationship. I don't think he would have thrown himself in front of a bullet otherwise."

Pat paused, nodding to himself. "That would have taken guts," he murmured, earning a slow and thoughtful nod from Amy.

"It did," she whispered, looking over to Pat with a shimmer of hope in her eyes. "I hate myself for what he's going through. I was the one who got myself into that whole mess of corruption and lies and he's the one now facing life in a wheelchair. I should have taken that bullet."

"Wake up to yourself, Amy," Pat told her, rolling his eyes as a misty expression spread across his face. "I've known PJ Hasham for over ten years and I know just as well as you do that he could never have let that happen. He's too honourable to let the people he loves get hurt like that. I saw the lengths he'd go to for Maggie." He sighed, shaking his head thoughtfully. "Hell, if he'd known what was going to happen to Maggie that night, he probably would have taken the bullets for her."

She nodded, looking away momentarily as she considered the engagement ring on her finger. "Yeah," she agreed, tracing the ring's surface as the warm November sunlight reflected off it. "PJ's the most decent, honourable, kind and loving man I've ever met."

Pat slouched against the train, folding his arms across his chest as he regarded Amy with a smile. "He is," he responded. "I was always having a go at him about the way he treated Maggie, but he never would have hurt her. He's everything I wish Robbie and Mick could have been." He sighed, the smile vanishing from his lips. "I suppose it's all my fault that it happened. I treated them all so badly…they self-destructed because of my own bloody stupidity."

Amy shook her head, reaching out to close her hand around Pat's. "You could have only ever done your best," she reminded him, leaning in closer as she shifted her position on the ground. "You loved them and looked after them as best you could and…and that's all any parent can do. You didn't force Robbie to start taking drugs or Mick to start getting involved in corruption."

"How did you know about all that?" Pat asked her, his eyes narrowing in confusion as he shook his head slowly.

"I've been a member of the Victoria Police since 1994," she explained, shrugging his question off as she leant back against the train behind her. "News travels within the force faster than it does in Chris Riley's pub on a busy day. You ought to know that."

Pat nodded, before realisation spread across his face. "You joined the coppers in '94?" he queried, the cogs of his mind beginning to whir. "You couldn't have been more than, what…nineteen at the time."

She nodded, the embarrassed smile returning to her face. "I was," she replied, her mind ticking back to her graduation from the academy. It felt like it was another lifetime, even though it had only been a little over fourteen years. "I'd made up my mind about what I wanted to do. I suppose I'm what you'd call a 'lifer'."

"Why did you join the police force?" Pat asked, an old curiosity filling his features. He'd missed the mystery and intrigue of the job in the years since he'd retired and even more so since he'd found himself stuck in a prison cell. Sitting there beside Amy was reminding him of everything about life he'd been missing.

Amy sighed, looking over to him with a weak half-smile. "You don't really want to know…" she began, only to find herself interrupted.

"Try me."

A familiar discomfort spread throughout Amy as she shuffled awkwardly on the ground, biting her bottom lip nervously. She'd already told the same story so many times before, but it never seemed to get any easier. She doubted that it ever would. "After my parents died in that car accident," she explained, tidying her hair with a slightly shaking hand. "I was taken to live with my aunt and uncle. Four years later, my uncle visited my bedroom when no one else was home…"


	95. Ep 19: His Golden Girl Pt5

**Part 5**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Breathe" _by Anna Nalick.

PJ peered out between his fingers as he regarded the photographs before him. He was sitting at his desk, looking through every shred of paperwork that Amy and Dash had accumulated during the day while following the drug dealer fiasco. He wasn't quite sure what it was he was hoping to find, but he knew that something had to be there. Anything that would take the blame away from Pat Doyle and point it at someone else.

A shrill ringing snapped PJ back to attention, sending his pulse racing from surprise. He looked over to Amy's desk, where her mobile phone was sitting atop of a pile of paperwork, slowly making its way to the edge as it vibrated in time with the ringing. He reversed back from his desk and wheeled himself alongside Amy's, grabbing Amy's mobile and checking the caller ID. It was Dash.

"Dash?" PJ queried as he raised the phone to his ear, sitting back in his chair.

"PJ?" Dash demanded, her voice almost deafening PJ instantly. "What are you doing with Amy's phone?"

PJ rolled his eyes as he supported the mobile in the crook of his shoulder, wheeling himself back to his desk and the photos lying across it. "Amy went off to find Pat, she left it behind," he explained distractedly as he resumed sifting through the images, now one-handedly. "Anyway, what's going on? Anything to report from the Imperial?"

"Actually, there is," Dash replied, leaning forward against the bar of the Imperial as she spoke. "I found a wallet down outside the room. Belongs to a local boy named Rupert Finch. Turns out his older brother died of a heroin overdose when Gregory Jackson last was dealing. Chris tells me he's a good softball player with a good pitching arm."

A kind of relief passed through PJ's face. "So he's the culprit then?"

Dash shrugged as she gratefully took the glass of water Chris offered to her. "Yep," she replied cheerfully, sculling it in one go. "I mean, we're going to have to go over and pick him up, but it's pretty much for certain. Anyway…why's Amy out looking for Pat? I thought you had him at the station?"

"We did," PJ replied, chuckling nervously. "He, ah…saw something he shouldn't have and did a runner."

"You and Amy weren't getting up to something naughty in the CI office, were you?" Dash teased, only to immediately sense that her humour wasn't well received on PJ's end. "I'm sure Amy will find him soon. Pat's not a total idiot; he won't have gone too far."

PJ sighed heavily. "Well, that's the hope anyway," he told her, turning to stare out into the muster room as he caught sight of Mark heading over to the CI office. "Anyway, I'd better go. Mark seems to want a word." He and Dash said their goodbyes before PJ looked up to see his Senior Sergeant waiting in the doorway.

"Did Dash have anything useful to report?" Mark against, folding his arms across his chest as he leant against the doorframe.

PJ nodded thoughtfully as he looked up to meet the older man's gaze. "She thinks that they've found the culprit. Seems he lost his wallet at the scene." He paused, waiting for Mark's reaction.

Mark sighed, nodding more for his sake than for PJ's. "So that'd put Pat Doyle in the clear then, wouldn't it?"

"I guess it would," PJ conceded, his eyes becoming distracted as his mind travelled to the desperate man he'd spend most of that day trying to keep an eye on. "I just hope it's not a case of acquitted too late."

* * *

PJ wheeled himself out towards the back entrance as Dash entered, guiding a young man inside. He was fairly tall and rather bulky, with cropped blonde hair and a death metal band t-shirt. He seemed almost relieved at being in police custody, much to PJ's surprise. "This him?" he asked curiously, wheeling himself closer to his colleague.

Dash nodded as she opened the door to the interview room and motioned for Rupert Finch to enter. She closed it behind him as she crept closer to PJ, lowering her voice. "He seems very cooperative," she explained quietly, nodding back to the interview room door. "I don't think he put a lot of thought into the Molotov cocktail stunt. He's remorseful."

"Can I sit in on the interview?" he queried, almost begging Dash with his eyes. She nodded, opening the door as she motioned for him to enter with her hand.

"Sure," she replied, a broad smile spreading across her face as PJ entered the interview and she switched the sign outside over to 'Occupied'.

* * *

Amy let her head rest back against the train, her arms cradling her knees tightly as she stared blankly ahead, tiny tears in her eyes. Pat remained beside her, a little speechless at what he'd been told by Amy. In a way, he was a little disbelieving that he hadn't picked up on it himself. "When were you stationed to Mt. Thomas?" he queried, still staring at her tear-stained cheeks that glistened in the daylight.

"July 2004," Amy replied automatically, a distant smile making its way across her features. "I'd been working in Organised Crime until that point. The position came up after the station was bombed. The whole disaster had forced HQ to take a good look at the staffing in Mt. Thomas and they decided they didn't just want it to remain a one-detective town. I wasn't interested in it. The sticks didn't have any appeal to me." She chuckled at the way she'd just described Mt. Thomas. She'd sounded just like a typical city girl.

"What made you come here then?"

She sighed in response to Pat's question as she slouched further against the train. "I don't really know," she confessed quietly. "I don't think I ever will. I had a really close friend in the job. She was in Homicide. I learned a little while later that she was surrounded by corruption and threats." She shrugged sadly as the memory of Lisa Craig returned. "I guess that experience destroyed her opinion of the big city squads. I think she thought I'd be better off in a small country town. She persuaded me to go for the job."

Pat nodded slowly, smiling over to her. "Maggie was reluctant to move to Mt. Thomas too," he explained with a nostalgic chuckle. "Unlike you, she was sent here without a choice. She was a city girl, born and bred. She knew more about lattés than cow paddocks. But she loved this place. She only lived here for six years, but it may as well have been sixty to her. This was her home."

"I only stayed here for about a year," Amy added, earning a slow nod from Pat. She found herself laughing weakly as tears of regret crept into her eyes. "Leaving here was the most foolish thing I've ever done in my entire life. I traded in friendship, respect and love for a place full of corruption, lies and dirty tactics. The sad thing is that people died for my mistake. And Tom Croydon had to die for me to realise that I had to come back here." She began shaking her head as she looked over to Pat, making a half-hearted attempt to return his smile. "You know, the last thing I ever said to Tom Croydon was to forget I'd ever called him. If I'd known that I would never get the chance to speak to him again, there's so much else I would have said…"

"Don't forget who you're talking to here," Pat replied, reaching out to clap her on the shoulder encouragingly. "I'm the king of leaving things unsaid." He paused, suddenly becoming downtrodden as he stared down into his lap dejectedly. "I never understood why crims used to get out of prison and then just commit another crime to get back in there. I do now." He looked up to her, his eyes clouding over as he shook his head hopelessly. "I've got nothing in my life. Nothing to go on for. That's why I borrowed the gun from my last cellmate. He was a con-man. He was worried about prison and managed to smuggle the gun in just in case he decided to top himself instead."

Amy's eyes narrowed in confusion as she studied Pat intently. "You smuggled the gun out of prison?" she asked in disbelief. On Pat's quick nod in reply, she found herself continuing. "You were planning to kill yourself even before you saw PJ?"

Pat sighed, shaking his head slightly. "Not quite," he explained. "I just wanted that way out. A ticket out just in case. What am I meant to do for the rest of my life?"

She began biting her bottom lip thoughtfully before shrugging. "What would you have done once you'd retired if your family hadn't died?"

He stared at her, uncertain for several seconds before a misty look spread across his face. "Kathleen and I were going to travel," he told her with a tiny smile. "We'd been saving up for years and we decided that once the kids had their own lives and I was done in the force, we'd turn into one of the grey nomads and head up north. See Australia before settling down in time to enjoy grandkids and a ripe old age. That didn't really turn out quite the way we'd planned."

Amy nodded, offering him a thoughtful, sympathetic smile. "Best laid plans, eh?" she replied, earning a nod in response.

"Once Kathleen had died, I gave up on the travelling idea," he continued. "The money was still sitting there and I decided to leave it to the kids. It was going to be split three ways…then two…then Maggie and Mick died and I had no one left." He shrugged dismally. "I was looking at a fifteen year prison term with a seven year non-parole period. To be honest, I thought I'd die in a cell. I didn't know how I'd go on without them. I didn't think about life after prison."

She sighed, before finally shrugging as she perched her chin atop of her knees. "You could still travel," she reminded him quietly. "As long as the money's still there, you could see Australia. You're a smart guy, you could probably pick up some work along the way and live off your savings."

Pat's eyes widened as he considered Amy's proposition. "Do you really think I could?" he asked quietly, earning a nod from Amy in reply.

"It's got to be better than sticking a bullet in your head," she pointed out as she slowly rose to her feet, straightening out the creases in her pants before offering her hand to Pat. He accepted it, pulling himself to his feet with a nod.

"Thanks," he grumbled, a genuine smile creeping across his face. "I think you might have just saved my life."

* * *

"Do you think this is enough?" Chris asked worriedly as she tied off a bright blue balloon and tied it to a long white streamer hanging down from the ceiling of the pub. She looked down to Kelly and Dash where they sat at the public bar, staring up at her as though she'd just asked them if the sky was blue.

Dash put down her glass of orange juice as she shared a quick look with Kelly. "If someone walked in off the street, they'd swear you'd just won the lotto," she replied, chuckling as even Kelly stifled a tiny giggle. Chris put on an expression of mock offence before she climbed down the ladder, studying her decorating hard.

"I just don't believe Pat Doyle's leaving so soon," she told them, staring over to a nearby table where Pat was engaged in a very animated conversation with Mark, apparently about the old days of policing that Tom Croydon had so often spoken of. "He's only been in town since this morning."

Dash shrugged as she leant across the bar. "Sometimes, you just know what you've got to do," she explained thoughtfully. "I mean, that's what it was like after my mum died. I just knew I had to get out of Mt. Thomas and I had wonderful experiences because of that."

Kelly looked up from where she was distractedly sipping on her lemonade, raising an eyebrow curiously. Travelling was something she had always seen herself doing, probably sometime before she settled down, but life had kept getting in the way. She was starting to feel uncomfortable in Mt. Thomas and she had no doubt that her rape was making her suffer from a case of itchy feet. "Where did you go?" she queried.

"A little bit of everywhere, I guess," Dash replied with a distant smile. "I spent a couple of years in Europe before heading over to the Americas. I'd just spent a year in Japan before I came back to Australia and rejoined the police force."

Kelly nodded thoughtfully, considering Dash's comment. The thought of getting out of Mt. Thomas was extremely attractive, although there was still something that kept her from simply picking up and going and she knew that it had a bit to do with Joss.

Before Kelly could even begin to try to reply, Chris butted in. "So, did you meet Phoebe's father while you were overseas or he is someone a little more local?" she asked, giggling slightly as she spoke. Dash regarded her darkly for several seconds, before masking it behind a good humoured laugh.

"Come on, Chris!" she told her as she gulped the remains of her orange juice. "I never kiss and tell!" She shot the pair a playful wink before disappearing off into the small crowd, grabbing Nick by the arm and forcibly dragging the much larger man away from Zoe and over to the pool table for a game. Funnily enough, Zoe didn't seem too angry. If anything, the prospect of her husband being beaten at pool seemed to excite her.

Joss slowly approached Kelly, offering her his hand as he bowed slightly. She turned to stare at him in confusion. "What the hell are you doing, Peroni?" she asked, taking another sip of her lemonade as she regarded him coolly.

"The music's right," he began, waving his free hand over to Chris' CD player, which was blaring some bizarre mix of rock and country. "Would the lady care to dance?"

She laughed, glancing back over her shoulder to Chris, who was chuckling herself. "How much have you had to drink?" she asked as she took Joss' hand and allowed him to steer her over to an empty section of floor.

"Nothing," he told her with a smile. "I'm sober. Why do I have to be drunk to be romantic, eh?"

The pair began to bicker as they danced slowly to the music, almost as though they were moving to a tune that only they could hear. Chris found herself smiling broadly at the sight of Kelly and Joss together and, for the first time in months, a genuine smile on Kelly's face.

* * *

Amy sat alone at a secluded table in the public bar, sipping on a glass of red wine as she watched Kelly and Joss dancing slowly. A tiny smile moved through her features as she followed their every movement, realising just how happy Kelly looked. The counselling had been doing a world of good for Kelly, even if progress was a little slow. It was also a relief to see Joss looking content again. He'd been miserable since Kelly had been attacked and the sight of them smiling was the most beautiful thing she had seen in a long time.

_Here in town you can tell he's been down for a while_

_But my God, it's so beautiful when the boy smiles_

A large shadow moved over her, causing Amy to jump in instinct. She looked up to find herself staring into the smiling face of Pat Doyle, who was holding a glass of beer in his hand. She nodded to his glass, her smile broadening. "You'd better not drink too much tonight," she pointed out with a laugh. "We wouldn't want Highway Patrol pulling your new caravan over tomorrow morning and arresting you for drink driving."

Pat considered the glass in his hand as he laughed. "Wouldn't dream of it," he told her, before looking over the table. "Where's PJ?"

"Toilet," Amy replied, leaning back as she dragged a chair over from a nearby table. "He was telling me this afternoon that he's recovered control of his bowel and bladder movements. It's not much, but he said that it's a sign that he might improve." She stared at Pat as he sat down, looking a little distracted. "Is everything alright?" she queried.

He nodded as he reached down into the pocket of his jeans, pulling out a folded and slightly crumpled white envelop. He held it out to Amy, who stared at it in confusion. "Take it," he told her with a nod. "I haven't poisoned it."

She took it from Pat's grasp, studying it hard before gently and delicately opening it. She drew out the single slip of paper inside, her eyes widening as she quickly realised that she was stared at a cheque. A cheque made out for five thousand dollars, in fact. "No way," she told him as she shook her head, sliding the cheque back to the other side of the table. "That's your money. You've earned it, saved it and deserve to keep it."

"I've got enough money to keep me travelling until well beyond my life span," Pat pointed out as he pushed the cheque back to her. "It would have been PJ's anyway. The money was going to be left to my family and, as far as Maggie was concerned, PJ was family. He's almost more like a son to me than my own ever were. Anyway, you'd need to do renovations of your home to accommodate a wheelchair, right?"

Amy looked at the cheque, before shaking her head and sliding it back. "We're not a charity case," she told him firmly. "We don't accept charity from you or anyone else."

Pat considered the cheque, before pushing it back to Amy. He placed his hand firmly upon it before Amy could push it back again. "Then this isn't charity," he told her quietly. "Call it a deal."

"A deal?" Amy queried as she sat back, staring at him curiously. "What kind of deal?"

A cheeky smile spread across Pat's face. "You can have the money, just as long as I get an invite to the wedding." As Amy's expression changed, he finally released his grip on the cheque, satisfied that Amy wasn't about to reject it again.

She picked up the cheque, offering him a grateful smile. "Thank you, Pat," she told him as she folded the slip neatly and slipped it into the pocket of her black suit jacket. "You've got yourself a deal."

Pat nodded as he rose to his feet, heading over to the bar where Chris was wiping it down, humming contently to herself. She looked up as he leant forward against it. "You know, there's an odd connection between the name Patrick and the unpleasant tendency to smudge my bar," she told him with a laugh as Pat pulled up a stood.

"You can't blame me for whatever it is PJ Hasham gets up too," he told her, his voice suddenly becoming serious as he leant in closer. "I need you to do me a favour."

Chris studied him intently as she stopped her wiping and leant forward across the bar, shrugging. "I don't know, Pat," she told him calmly. "I don't do favours for just anyone." She paused, before finally deciding to let him have his piece. "What's the favour, anyway?"

"I want you to let me know if anyone even so much as thinks about hurting PJ and Amy again," he explained, nodding back to the table where Amy was sitting. She was still sipping on her wine, watching Kelly and Joss bicker as they danced. Chris watched her for a few seconds before slowly turning her gaze back to Pat as he continued. "I want you to let me know so I can rip their bloody head off."

She chuckled at Pat's words as she set her cloth aside and picked up an empty glass to pour herself a drink. "Don't worry, I'll let you know," she assured him with a wink. "But you'll be at the end of a very long queue, trust me. They've got a lot of friends in this town who are anxious to see those two live happily ever after."

Pat nodded as he turned back to stare at Amy. PJ had returned from the bathroom and had wheeled himself up to Amy. Pat watched as PJ scooped Amy into his lap smoothly, wrapping his strong arms around her as she cradled his chin in her hand. A broad smile spread across his face as Amy kissed him passionately, before pulling away to tell him about the cheque.

Amy Fox was no Maggie Doyle, but she was PJ's golden girl and there was no doubting that their love was just as strong as any he'd ever seen before. And he knew that would be enough to carry them through.


	96. Ep 20: Confidence Man Pt1

**Episode 20: "Confidence Man"**

**Summary: **_In the series one finale, PJ questions Dash's integrity when she introduces the Heelers to a self-proclaimed spiritualist who seems to know more about their lives than he should. Amy is faced with her secret desires after collapsing at work. Kelly makes a startling decision about her future._

**Part 1**

The muggy heat hit PJ hard as he slowly stirred awake, his eyelids heavy and his vision slowly focusing as he stared up at the ceiling fan. He let his head flop to one side as he took in every scent of the beautiful woman lying next to him, curled up into a tight ball in her pastel blue summer pyjamas. Her messy hair almost fell into his mouth as he crawled closer to her, using his arms to prop himself up to kiss her cheek tenderly.

As the tiniest of smiles crept across Amy's lips, he rolled onto his back, staring up at the ceiling as he laid beneath the blankets wearing nothing more than a pair of boxers. There was something going on that he couldn't quite put his finger on, no matter how hard he tried to make sense of it. He let his mind wander as he tried to find the cause of the odd feeling inside him. It was an unusual feeling, but oddly familiar just the same.

It suddenly struck him with all the force of a speeding train. He jolted up to sitting, throwing the blankets off his legs violently as he stared down at them. He could feel the hairs on his legs moving ever so slightly in the wind of the ceiling fan. He could actually feel it!

He cursed in disbelief under his breath as he leant forward, pressing down on his legs with his hands, unsure of whether or not he wanted this to be real. Sure enough, he could still feel the pressure of his hands on his legs. He stared at his legs, his mind suddenly numb. It had been over two months since he had been shot and he'd become quite accustomed to the lack of feeling below his waist and even to the prospect of life in a wheelchair.

He squeezed his eyes shut tightly as he tried to concentrate all his effort into forcing some movement into his legs. However, he was eventually forced to give up when it became quite clear that nothing was happening. He had feeling in his legs, but walking was still as impossible as ever.

PJ sighed dejectedly as he flopped back into the pillows, staring hard at the spinning fan above his head. He couldn't quite trust that this was real. After months of nothing, this was something that he felt unprepared for. He was stirred from his thoughts by Amy's movement at his side as she awoke.

Amy pushed herself up, combing strands of messy hair from her eyes as she rolled over, expecting to find PJ lying contentedly beside her, only to find himself staring distractedly at the ceiling. She crawled up to sitting, crossing her legs beneath her. "Something's wrong," she observed, causing PJ to push himself up as he leant back against the head of the bed.

He stared at her for a long moment, before feigning a smile and shaking his head. "Nothing's wrong," he assured her, however he noticed that her expression remained as doubtful as ever. She crawled closer to him, taking his hand within hers.

"You know what day it is, don't you?" she queried as realisation crept across PJ's face.

He looked away momentarily, nodding slowly. "The twenty third of November," he replied, looking over to the calendar hanging on their bedroom wall. Every date until the twenty third had been neatly crossed off with a red biro. He sighed, letting his hand slip from Amy's as he flopped back into the pillows. "Exactly one year from the day of Tom's murder."

He rolled over to check the alarm clock as Amy nodded in reply. His heart sank in his chest as he realised that the time read eight o'clock in the morning.

Exactly one year from the moment he'd found Tom Croydon's body lying in his living room.

* * *

Dash bounced Phoebe on her knee as she sat behind her desk in the muster room, staring across at the older man sitting opposite. He wasn't much older than her, no older than thirty five at any rate, and he was rather attractive with scruffy blonde hair and a gentle, husky voice that was almost musical. She got the distinct impression that this man could sing if he tried. He was sitting with his hands clasped comfortably in his lap, his lips twisting into a smile as he watched Dash attempt to soothe her daughter.

Phoebe finally managed to escape her mother's grasp as she toddled off towards the mess room. Dash craned her neck to follow her daughter with her gaze. "Phoebes," she called, causing her daughter to spin back to stare at her. "Where are you going?"

"Mess room," Phoebe replied, impatiently shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "Chocolate cookies." Phoebe took off to the mess room without any further comments, defying Dash's calls for her to return.

Dash looked up to the man, chuckling nervously. "Sorry," she apologised as she began to play with her hair. "She's a ball of energy. Gets it from her mother, I think."

Aaron Richards chuckled lightly at Dash's comment, dismissing it with a wave of his hand. "Kids, eh?" he told her, before his expression grew serious. "You're still interested in contacting your mother, I assume?"

"I lost a bit of myself after she died," she whispered, tiny tears springing up in her eyes. "I left my job; I spent years travelling the world, trying to find myself again."

Aaron stared at her pointedly, bringing his left leg up over his right as he nodded. "Did it work?" he queried as a tiny tear slid down Dash's cheek.

She shook her head slowly in response. "No," she admitted in a small and almost regretful voice. "It didn't. That's why I've come to you. I ran into an old friend of Mum's who sang your praises." She shrugged as a hint of a smile played on her lips. "I figured I had nothing to lose."

He nodded as he leant across to her, reaching to take her hands within his. "You've got to really believe in this for it to work…" he explained, studying her hard.

Dash nodded, steeling herself. She'd ventured down so many avenues while she had been abroad, only to find that her hopes were cruelly destroyed every single time. She didn't want this to be another dead end. "I do," she assured him, staring him down. "I'm ready."

Aaron nodded thoughtfully as he closed his eyes, sitting back in the office chair as his expression grew oddly blank. Dash felt her heart pounding in her chest as she tried with all her might to focus on what Aaron was doing and not on the sounds of her daughter greedily gulping down the chocolate biscuits in the mess room. She squeezed his hands a little tighter, as though cutting off the circulation to his fingers might somehow make this latest attempt more successful than the last.

It seemed as though an eternity had passed before Aaron finally spoke, his voice surprisingly devoid of emotion. "Your mother's here," he told her, nodding slowly. "She's safe. That's the one thing she wants you to know – she's safe."

Aaron's assurances worked wonders on Dash's nerves. She loosened her grip on his hands, glancing down to them as the colour seemed to rush back to his fingertips. It took every ounce of self-control in her body to not scream out loud in excitement.

"She's proud of you," he continued, a tiny smile creeping across his lips. "She's really proud of the way you've brought Phoebe up, even without the father in your life. She says that…if there's one thing she regrets, it's not being able to cuddle her little granddaughter in her arms."

Dash felt the tears running faster down her cheeks, her composure crumbling into tiny little pieces. She felt her whole body begin to shake, the trembling travelling through to Aaron by the linking of their hands. The thought of her beloved mother never meeting her granddaughter was almost too much to bear. It had been a major reason why she'd spent so much time looking for answers she still hadn't found. But Aaron had to be the most promising link so far. "Mum…" she whispered, shaking her head slowly.

Aaron opened his mouth, about to say something more when a loud voice rang over the muster room. "I found this little munchkin in the mess room," Kelly called, holding a giggling Phoebe in her arms. "She was eating all the chockie bickies."

"Was not!" Phoebe denied vehemently, her voice rather articulate for a girl of barely two and a half years. "Kelly's lying!"

Kelly made an expression of mock indignation as she used her free hand to tickle Phoebe's stomach playfully, earning more cries of innocence and laughter from the little girl. Dash smiled gleefully at the sight, before quickly remembering that she was still holding Aaron's hands. Kelly caught sight of the connection just as Dash broke it. She looked to Aaron, studying him curiously. "Who are you?" she asked him as Dash jumped up and pulled Phoebe into her arms.

"Aaron Richards," he replied, digging through his pockets before pulling out a small business card. Kelly eyed it suspiciously before eventually taking it.

She stared down at the card with narrowed eyes. "You're a spiritualist?"

Aaron nodded quickly. "Ah, yeah," he told her with a warm smile. "Feel free to get in touch if you want." He waved an arm towards Kelly as he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants. "I know the anniversary of Tom's death is rattling you a little."

Kelly stepped back defensively, shifting her gaze from Aaron to Dash. "Did you tell him…" she began, only to be met with a shaking head.

"No," Dash replied, clutching her daughter tighter to her chest. "Of course I haven't told him anything."

Kelly opened her mouth to question Aaron about his knowledge, but she was interrupted by an impatient squeal from Dash's arms. "Mummy," Phoebe moaned, looking to Dash intently. "I want something to drink."

Dash sighed as she ruffled Phoebe's dark hair, before looking back to Aaron. She gave him a grateful mumble of thanks before disappearing off to the mess room, talking to her daughter in a hushed voice.

Kelly watched her go, looking up to meet Aaron's gaze with a kind of cool curiosity. "I haven't got anything planned for tonight," she explained shrugging thoughtfully. "How much do you charge?"

"Normally I charge twenty dollars for a half hour session," Aaron replied, offering Kelly a friendly smile as he reached out to shake her hand. "But for you, I'll do it pro bono."

He waited expectantly for Kelly to take his hand, but the blonde remained motionless. He eventually nodded in reply, understanding what exactly it was he was supposed to do. "I'd better get going then. I'll see you tonight at the Imperial, Kelly."

Kelly watched as he disappeared out into the reception area, her heart pounding heavily in her chest. She looked down to the card in her hands, realising that she was trembling ever so slightly. She wasn't the kind of person to be drawn into this kind of spiritual thing, but it somehow felt right. It had been exactly a year since she lost her father figure and her itchy feet were itchier than ever.

* * *

Dash stood alone in the mess room, holding her mobile to her ear as she listening intently. She absentmindedly twirled a dark strand of hair around her index finger, as though she were nothing more than a giggling school girl. Her eyes betrayed the true story, however, as they brimmed with tiny tears. On the other end of the phone, she could hear the sounds of Aaron Richards flipping through a diary, distractedly chewing on his biro.

"I've got an opening on Thursday night," he told her as he lowered his pen, tapping it against the page of his diary. It was almost completely crammed with scrawled notes – an assortment of names, places and times. "I'm almost booked solid."

Dash felt her heart sink as she slumped back against the bench. "Isn't there anyway I can see you before next week?" she asked him pleadingly. "I enjoyed our session so much this morning…I need to see you again."

Almost as though he could sense that this was the worst timing imaginable, PJ pushed the mess room door open before wheeling himself inside, nursing an empty plate and coffee cup on his lap. A cheeky grin spread across his face at Dash's last comment as she quickly shuffled away from the sink so that he could put the plate and cup up on the bench.

"I did have an opening tonight," Aaron explained, apparently unaware on Dash's company. "But that colleague of yours took it. Kelly, isn't it?"

Dash turned to watch PJ distractedly, shrugging impatiently at him as he remained motionless, his cheeky grin broadening. "Yeah, yeah," she mumbled, trying to wave PJ away without my success. "I guess Thursday will have to do then…Yeah, I can't wait…Bye." She hung up her mobile and stuffed it back in her pocket before turning back to PJ expectantly. "What?!"

"I need to see you again?" PJ queried, his eyes glinting with suspicion. "Who were you just arranging to meet?"

She stuck her tongue out at him defiantly as she grabbed the dirty plate and cup that PJ had brought in and set about rinsing them automatically. "That'd be none of your business, would it?"

"Oh, I don't know about that," he retorted as he wheeled himself closer to Dash. "I'm a detective; it's my job to know what all my colleagues get up to in their private time. You aren't getting up to anything naughty with this guy, are you?"

"Who says it's a guy?" Dash replied, turning to PJ with a grin as she placed a hand on her hip. At the new look of curiosity on PJ's face, she decided that keep him in suspense was probably not her best option. "Okay, okay, so it's a guy…"

PJ nodded, gripping the wheels of his chair tighter as he studied her intently. "Yes…" he probed, causing Dash to roll her eyes in annoyance.

"I'm not getting up to anything naughty with him," Dash told him, folding her arms across her chest as she turned off the taps and headed for the door back out into the corridor. "He's a spiritualist. He's helping me get in touch with Mum."

PJ's expression went blank. "A spiritualist?" he demanded in disbelief. "Is that what he told you?"

She narrowed her eyes as she stared at him, leaning back against the bench as she shrugged. "What's the big problem with that?" she asked him, earning a shaking head in reply.

"He's either deluded or conning you," he pointed out in a cool, yet concerned voice. "You don't believe that stuff, do you?"

"I do believe it, PJ," she snapped, approaching him slowly. "Just because you don't believe Aaron Richards is a spiritualist…"

PJ raised his eyebrows at Dash's comment. "So that's his name, is it?" he queried as he began to wheel himself towards the door.

Dash followed him with her gaze. "Yeah," she replied, shrugging in confusion. "Is there something wrong with that?"

He looked up to her, shrugging in response. "I'll tell you when I know," he told her simply before disappearing from sight and back out into the corridor.

* * *

Amy slipped into the CI office, tidying her hair hurriedly. She'd just spent a good five minutes in the bathroom, staring into the mirror as she tried to decide what exactly felt wrong. Something did, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. It had been bugging her for longer than she cared to reflect upon, but she had been so sidetracked with everything that it had kept shrinking back further and further into the background.

She closed the door out to the muster room behind her, staring at PJ in confusion. He was sitting behind his desk, noting something down on a sheet of paper as he listening intently to someone on the other end of the phone. She sat down in her own chair, spinning herself backwards and forwards absentmindedly as she watched her fiancé. Several minutes and barely three words from PJ later, he set the phone back down into its cradle and let his head sink forward into his hands.

"Peej?" Amy asked as she rose to her feet again, standing behind PJ as she leant down to rest her chin in the crook of his shoulder and drape her arms around his neck. "Is something wrong?"

PJ finally looked back to her, closing his hand around hers as he offered her a grim smile. "Dash is being sucked in by a con-man," he told her quietly, watching as Amy's eyebrows rose in alarm.

Amy drew away from PJ, leaning back against the window behind his desk. She stared at him blankly, a hint of alarm passing through her face. PJ turned around so that he was facing her, his hands resting uncomfortably in his lap. She shook her head in confusion. "What kind of con-man?" she queried, folding her arms across her chest.

"I caught her in the mess room earlier," he explained, gesturing vaguely off towards it. "She was on the phone to someone called Aaron Richards. He'd told her that he's a spiritualist and can get in touch with her mother."

"A spiritualist?" Amy demanded softly, glancing up quickly to the muster room to make sure that Dash hadn't returned. It was surprisingly empty, although perhaps not so surprisingly. Joss and Kelly were off on patrol, Mark was in his office and trying for the millionth time to get in contact with Piper Morris and Nick wasn't due to start until later that morning.

PJ nodded slowly as he grabbed the paper he had been scribbling on and offered it up to Amy. She took it hesitantly and began to skim his notes with a kind of urgency. "I spoke to a mate of mine in Melbourne," he explained as he sat forward expectantly. "Apparently Aaron Richards was a person of interest to South Yarra CI until two months ago when he left without warning. He was offering his services as a spiritualist, claiming to be in contact with the dead."

"They couldn't prove anything," Amy observed as she continued to skim the notes. She looked up to PJ, shrugging helplessly. "PJ…I understand that you don't want Dash getting involved in this kind of scam, but I don't see how we can really do anything about it. Unless we can prove that this Aaron Richards isn't a spiritualist, then we can't prove that he's obtaining property by deception."

PJ stared at her thoughtfully, before shaking his head and turning back to his desk. Amy crept up behind him as he grabbed the laptop and pulled it closer to him, opening it as he spoke. "Not if there's anything I can do about it," he mumbled as he began to search for details of Aaron Richards' residence. "He's not going to be abusing the memories of those who have died for very much longer."


	97. Ep 20: Confidence Man Pt2

**Part 2**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Unlovable" _by Darren Hayes.

Amy shut the door out to the car park behind her as she waved her hand down the corridor towards the interview in a single, sweeping gesture. "Down here, please," she told Aaron Richards, eyeing him suspiciously as he nodded solemnly and began walking slowly down the corridor.

PJ wheeled himself level with Amy, looking up to her curiously. "Where do you think he's getting his information from?" he quizzed, earning a thoughtful shrug from Amy in reply.

"Who knows," she replied as she stared after Aaron, narrowing her eyes. She studied him hard for a few seconds, a little disbelieving that this man could be a spiritualist or a con-man. "He could be using medical records or legal documents. Or just some good guess work." She offered PJ an encouraging smile as she gave his shoulder a tiny squeeze. "Come on, I think we'd better not keep him waiting too long. This interview is almost unethical enough as it is."

He nodded as Amy headed down to meet Aaron at the doorway to the interview room. He went to follow, only to be stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. For a moment, he thought it had to have been Nick, only to realise his mistake when the person behind him spoke. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

PJ spun to find himself face to face with Dash, who was standing with her arms folded sternly across her chest and her expression icy. He drew in a deep breath as he heard the interview room door close and Amy's high-heeled footsteps heading back down along the corridor towards them. "I spoke to a mate at South Yarra," he began, noticing the way Dash's brow continued to furrow in frustration. "Aaron Richards is a person of interest to them. They suspected him of obtaining property by deception with his spiritualist act…"

"Did they ever get enough evidence to do anything about it?" Dash demanded, glaring hard at PJ and Amy. Amy shuffled back slightly, realising that this was PJ and Dash's fight. Aside from anything else, she was feeling a little faint. She gave a mumble as she excused herself, disappearing off to the mess room. Dash and PJ watched her go, before turning to stare at one another again. "Come on, PJ," Dash continued. "Did they ever charge him?"

He sighed, shaking his head slowly. "No," he admitted quietly. "But all that means is that he's a smart con-man. He operates just beyond where the law can grab him. He's using you, Dash. You and your mother."

"He's not using me," Dash told him firmly, waving a hand towards the mess room, even though no one was there. "If you don't believe me, ask Kelly. She saw him this morning and even made a booking for tonight…ask her about how he knew that it had been a year since Tom was killed…"

PJ's jaw dropped open in horror. "He's exploiting Kelly and the Boss too?!" he snapped, before shaking his head in disbelief. "That man is scum, he's conning you out of your mother by abusing your mother's memory and he'll do the same to Kelly with the Boss'."

"If he's not the real thing," Dash began, regarding PJ calmly. "Then how did he know about Tom?"

"I don't know," PJ replied, waving a hand wildly to the interview room. "Maybe he happened to open a newspaper. Maybe he happened to turn on the TV…maybe you let it slip…"

Dash's face filled with utmost horror. "You think I told him about Tom so that he could impress Kelly?" she breathed, her breath beginning to come in shaky gasps. She could handle PJ's accusations against Aaron, but the thought of him accusing her of such behaviour was insulting in the extreme. She glared at him, shaking her head in defence. "I thought you knew me better than that, Peej," she whispered, her voice suddenly very small.

Dash's offence took a little of the coldness out of PJ's stare. He nodded slowly, moving a little closer to her. "I'm sorry," he apologised quietly, staring up into Dash's eyes imploringly. "But I don't like people who think that they can abuse the memories of the dead and our grief for their own gain. It makes me sick." He paused, before turning to head off to the mess room. "I'm going to find Amy," he told her firmly. "Then I'm going to interview Aaron Richards."

She watched as he disappeared down the corridor before slumping back against the charge counter. She realised with a bitter pang that this was something she had to have expected. Not all of her colleagues would be nearly as understanding as Kelly was.

* * *

Amy stared into the mirror of the girls' bathroom, watching as drops of tap water dribbled down her face. She didn't know what was wrong with her. She'd been feeling rotten for ages now, possibly even months. She hadn't thought much of it until recently. The stress of the last couple of months had to have had an effect on her and she'd simply put the way she felt down to a nasty flu combined with exhaustion. But life was starting to get back to some sense of normality now that PJ was home again and on as close to operational duty as he could get. She was surprised that she still felt as bad as she did.

She almost jumped through the roof in fright at the sound of knocking. She leant back against the tiled wall as she calmed her racing heart, listening to the sound of PJ's voice coming through the door. "Amy?" he called, knocking again. "Are you alright?"

She nodded as she straightened herself up, using her hands to iron out the creases in her skirt, without much success. She opened the door, offering PJ a tiny smile of reassurance as she stepped back out into the corridor. "Yeah," she told him with a half-hearted chuckle. "It's just some bloody flu. I've had it for ages; I just can't get rid of it."

PJ eyed her suspiciously for several seconds, before a smile of relief found its way across his lips. "You should go see Zoe this afternoon after work," he told her, taking her hand within his and kissing it tenderly. She giggled weakly at his romantic display. "I can't have my fiancé feeling ill on me, can I?" He chuckled as he steered her away from the toilets and back towards the interview room. "If you've had this thing for months, she'll probably prescribe something for it. You don't have to feel miserable and sick."

Amy nodded as her smile broadened slightly. "Of course," she replied, squeezing his hand as they stopped outside the interview room. "I'll go see Zoe and get something for this flu." At PJ's nod, she opened the door to the interview room and headed over to her usual chair, while PJ wheeled himself in behind her. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself that this was only some flu bug she couldn't shake, she knew deep down that it was something more. It was only now that her life was returning to a semblance of normal that she realised it.

She was disturbed from her thoughts by the sound of PJ's voice as he sat beside her, leaning forward over the table that separated them and Aaron. "You claim to be a spiritualist," he began, staring at him hard with his wise and inquisitive blue eyes. "What exactly is that?"

Aaron turned his gaze from PJ to Amy and back again before he drew in a deep breath and replied. "I can make contact with the spirits of those who have crossed over," he explained, leaning forward as he returned PJ's hard stare. "People come to me to seek closure with their loved ones. Your Senior Constable is a good example."

PJ glanced over to Amy, whose expression remained one of curiosity and distraction, before he shook his head in confusion. "How do you mean?" he queried.

"Beth McKinley died a sudden and unexpected death," Aaron explained, his voice surprisingly calm and eloquent. "Dash never had the opportunity to say a proper farewell, as often happens with the people who seek my skills. This has left her drifting. Other developments in her life, such as her daughter, are forcing her to revisit the loss of her mother." Aaron paused, his expression growing slightly blank as he continued to stare at PJ. "You've suffered many losses, haven't you Detective Hasham?"

PJ became uneasy as he lowered his head, clasping his hands together in an attempt to stop them from shaking. Amy finally seemed to snap to attention as she sat forward, placing a protective and comforting hand on PJ's shoulder. Her touch seemed to be all PJ needed to keep going. "I'm a police officer," he reminded Aaron sternly. "It sort of comes with the territory."

Aaron nodded in understanding before continuing. "Losing Maggie was unexpected for you," he told PJ gently. "It cut you to lose her."

"And what the hell does Maggie have to do with any of this?" PJ demanded, leaning ever further across the desk. Even Amy's calming influence couldn't stop the anger rising up within him. The thought of this man using Maggie Doyle for his own financial game sickened him to his very core.

"Maggie's here," Aaron explained, looking to Amy briefly. "She wanted to thank you, Detective Fox. She's glad that you were able to save her father and that you've made PJ happy again."

Amy looked a little uncomfortable at the idea that Maggie Doyle was thanking her from beyond the grave. She looked away, red blush rising into her cheeks. PJ found himself no longer able to stand it. "Cut the crap, Richards," he snapped, raising his voice as he spoke. "I want the name of your source and I want it now!"

Aaron seemed unfazed by PJ's outburst. If anything, he seemed more unruffled than ever. "She says that she could have thumped you for what you did to Jo," he told PJ, watching as PJ's temper continued to flare. Yet, there was a tiny glimmer in PJ's eyes that told Aaron that he was a little interested in what he had to say. "She was so disappointed that you let your love for her destroy your relationship with Jo. Maggie wants you to know that they're both safe, though. And so is your mother…"

"Leave my mother out of this!" PJ snapped, beating the palms of his hands down on the table. It made Amy jump a little in surprise. "You're a disgusting little lying piece of crap…"

"She's happy for you," Aaron interrupted, staring imploring into PJ's eyes. "If there's one thing Maggie wants you to know, it's that she's happy you've found someone like Amy to love. She'll always be looking out for you and her father. Oh, and she says that…the basketball team and the reserve bench aren't necessarily something you should be discounting…"

PJ froze, horror creeping across his face. He'd been preparing to hammer Aaron again, but his last comment sent shivers of disbelief down his spine. He could still remember the conversation he and Maggie had had about the basketball team and the reserve bench, but he'd been certain that no one else knew about it. They couldn't, it had happened down a mine shaft where only he and Maggie could hear it. No one else could know…unless Maggie had told her best friend about it…

Aaron seemed satisfied with PJ's stunned silence, instead turning his attention to Amy. His expression softened somewhat as he stared at her, reaching out to take her hands within his. She flinched slightly under his touch, but didn't pull away. "You never did get the opportunity to reconcile with Garth, did you?" he probed gently, gazing into Amy's teary emerald eyes. She tried to snap at him several times, only to find that she didn't have the energy to muster even a death glare.

"No," she confessed quietly, shaking her head slowly. She couldn't quite tear her gaze away from the man sitting opposite her.

Aaron nodded slowly and deliberately as he closed his eyes, sitting back in his chair. "He says that he is genuinely sorry for the way he treated you," he told her, never once breaking the connection of their hands. "He wishes that he'd told you about his abuse. What your uncle did to you reminded him too much of what his father did to him. He says that…he saw too much of what he hated in himself in everything he loved about you. He never wanted to hurt you. He still hates himself for the pain he caused you."

_Do I remind you of a part of you that you despise?_

Amy felt a tremble of sadness travel throughout her body. She'd accepted Garth's death as best she could, especially when she was already busy trying to look after PJ. In the chaos of the last few months, Garth's death had drifted almost as far into the background as her flu. Hearing these words – including the apology she had so longed for – made her heart flutter in her chest. Beside her, she could almost hear PJ's anger and indignation at what Aaron was doing.

"Garth just wants you to know that he will never stop loving you," Aaron continued, squeezing Amy's hands encouragingly. "But he's so happy to see you with PJ. He'd rather see you happy with someone else rather than miserable with him…"

PJ finally snapped. He pounded the table again, causing Amy and Aaron to jump back from the table in surprise. "That's it!" he exclaimed, glaring at Aaron hard. "Where are you getting your information from? I want your source and I want it now!"

Aaron stared at PJ in curiosity for several seconds, before finally shaking his head. "Maggie warned me that you might have trouble believing that I can make contact with those who have crossed over," he pointed out, his voice cool and composed. "She said that you weren't a strong believer in anything that you couldn't see, hear or touch. You deal in facts and dismiss anything even remotely supernatural as lies…"

Unable to stand another word, PJ wheeled himself out of the interview room, letting the door slam shut behind him. Amy mumbled an apology to Aaron before following him out into the corridor, where she found him sitting back in his chair and looking utterly drained. "He's playing with us," PJ grumbled, running his hands back along his head as Amy closed the door silently behind her. "He's exploiting our Maggie and Garth for the sake of his con." He lowered his hands as he turned to stare up at Amy, shaking his head slowly as tiny tears appeared in his eyes. "Doesn't it hurt you?" he asked her softly. "Doesn't it hurt you deep inside to hear him using Garth Henderson like that?"

Amy paused as she tried to reply, only to shrug. Silence hovered between them for a long moment, before she finally found the conviction to speak. "He knew things he shouldn't know," she told him quietly. "There's no way that he could know about Garth's father or my uncle. The only way he could have found out is through legal documents of LEAP, and the only way he could get to those would be through a copper…"

"Dash," PJ interrupted, shaking his head in disbelief. "She's got to be the connection."

Amy's jaw dropped open in horror. "Dash?!" she snapped, crouching down so that she was level with PJ's eyes. She let her right hand rest on his knee, squeezing it gently. "I've only known Dash for a few months, but she's a good person. She's kind and funny…a bit like Kelly and Joss used to be. She wouldn't use the system to find out that kind of stuff. And she certainly wouldn't be passing it on to Aaron."

"How do you explain the basketball team and the reserve bench, then?!" PJ demanded, wrapping his hands around Amy's. She stared at him in confusion, shaking her head slowly in a silent indication for him to continue. "Over ten years ago, Maggie and I were trapped in a mine shaft. We got talking about kids and family and…I made a comment about wanting six children. Maggie then said that that was a basketball team and a reserve bench."

Amy's stare grew more distracted as she reflected on PJ's words. She'd long suspected that PJ had a strong desire for children, but she'd never allowed herself to dwell on it for too long. After all, PJ had given her everything she could have ever wanted in life, yet the one thing he had always wanted would be the one thing she'd never be able to give him. But the little glimmer in his eyes as he spoke about children made her realise just how deeply it ran. The fact that she couldn't fulfil that desire PJ had made her feel worthless and thoroughly empty.

"Maybe someone overheard your conversation," Amy suggested with a shrug. "Maybe a rescue worker happened to catch a bit of your conversation…"

"No," he replied quickly, shaking his head with conviction. "No one even knew Mags and I were missing at that stage." He paused, his stare growing ever more thoughtful. "I never told a soul about that conversation until now. Not even Nick found out about it. The only person who could know would be Dash."

As PJ began to wheel himself away, Amy rose to her feet, shrugging helplessly. "How would Dash know?" she asked him, the sound of her voice causing PJ to pause. He turned back to her, meeting her gaze hesitantly.

"Dash McKinley was Maggie's best friend," he replied simply. "If anyone ever found out about that conversation, it would have been her."

* * *

Amy combed her hair back from her forehead as she headed into the muster room, pausing at the sight of Nick Schultz sitting behind his desk. She cast her gaze quickly around the main part of the station, her heart sinking at Dash's absence. PJ was determined to speak to her about this spiritualist matter and she was determined to see the matter resolved as soon as possible. That interview had rattled her thoroughly, on top of her horrible feeling of being unwell.

Nick stopped working as Amy's shadow fell over him, looking up to regard her with a cool curiosity. It quickly turned to a kind of horror. "Foxtrot," he told her, his new nickname for her slipping casually from his lips. "You look like the living dead. You haven't been up all night having a good old bonk with PJ, have you?"

She shook her head as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ears before rubbing her tired eyes in an attempt to make herself feel even a little better. It didn't work in the slightest. "Nah," she replied with a weak smile. "I've just got some flu thing. I was probably coming down with it before PJ was shot; I guess I've been so stressed out lately that I haven't been able to recover from it. This is what I get for not looking after myself."

He studied her hard as his eyes filled with sympathy. He knew how badly everything was affecting Amy lately and he wasn't too surprised that something like this had ended up happening. He finally looked away, aware that Amy wasn't appreciating his stare too much. "You should go see Zo," he told her as he shuffled through some of the paperwork on his desk as a few strands of messy dark hair fell in front of his eyes. "She'll definitely prescribe something for you if you've had this thing for months."

"Great," Amy mumbled tiredly as she flopped down in Kelly's empty chair. "Just what I need. Another worrying PJ." She looked up to Nick, only to find that he was chuckling weakly. Amy sighed heavily as she shrugged. "I'm not feeling as bad as I did before. I was vomiting a while ago. Then again, that was at about the same time as PJ started physio, so I guess that was probably nerves."

"Definitely go see Zoe," Nick told her firmly as he looked up from his paperwork. "You're one of the sanest coppers around this place. I can't have you dropping dead on me. If nothing else, think of the paperwork that'd involve!"

Amy laughed lightly at Nick's comment. Nick's dry sense of humour could infuriate her at times, but it actually made her feel better at that moment. She wasn't so sure that this was just a case of the flu, but she managed to force it out of her mind as she cast another glance around the muster room. "Where's Dash?" she queried.

Nick looked down to his paperwork once again. "I sent her out to get the lunches," he explained as he resumed shuffling the papers that were scattered across his desk. "Why are you looking for her?"

"PJ's convinced that she's told a suspected con-man information that she had no right to disclose," she explained, shaking her head in disbelief as she tried to consider the possibility that Dash crossed the line.

Nick froze, looking up to Amy with sudden interest. "What kind of con-man?" he demanded quietly. "What kind of information?"

"His name's Aaron Richards," Amy explained, gesturing vaguely to the interview room, where Aaron was still waiting. "He's claiming to be a spiritualist and Dash has been having sessions with him. He's a person of interest to South Yarra CI." She paused, considering Nick's second question. "He claimed to have been in touch with both Maggie Doyle and Garth Henderson while PJ and I were questioning him. He knew about my uncle, the circumstances of my relationship break up with Garth and the details of a conversation that PJ and Maggie once had. Among other things."

He shook his head slowly. "Could he have gotten it from the newspaper?"

Amy nodded thoughtfully. "Some things, yes. I suppose he probably got the date of Tom's murder from the Gazette and possibly some vague details about the circumstances of Garth and Maggie's deaths." She leaned in closer as she lowered her voice, hoping that none of her colleagues would return to listen in. "But some of the things he mentioned could only have been discovered from police records. Very few people know about my uncle. It would have had to come from the official reports from the investigation. And it still doesn't explain the conversation that PJ and Maggie had."

"What conversation?"

"When PJ and Maggie were trapped in a mine shaft," Amy explained wringing her hands together slightly. "They apparently had a conversation about kids which led to Maggie saying something about a basketball team and a reserve bench. According to PJ, Maggie might have told Dash at some point and he's certain that Dash is the only person who could have told Aaron Richards."

Nick sighed, burying his face in his hands. "God, I hope she hasn't done anything stupid," he mumbled, before looking up to Amy again. "I'll let you guys know as soon as she returns, okay?"

Amy nodded slowly as she gave a mumble of thanks, before rising to her feet. Almost as soon as she reached standing, however, she began to sway as she found herself unsteady on her feet. She grabbed the nearest thing she could find – the barrier of Nick's desk – to try to keep herself upright, only to nearly upturn the entire desk. Nick leapt back in horror as he jumped to his feet, reaching out to grab Amy as her eyes closed gently and she fell into his chest. She turned into a dead weight in his arms as Nick crouched down to the floor, lying Amy on her side and gently combing hair back from her face. He looked around desperately, before catching sight of Mark standing in the doorway to his office, regarding the scene before him in horror.

"Get a bloody ambulance!" Nick snapped as Mark crossed the floor to them, crouching down beside Amy as he grabbed a portable radio from where it had been left by Joss on his desk.

"What the hell happened?" Mark demanded as he held the radio close to his mouth, preparing to radio VKC for assistance.

Nick simply shook his head dismally as he looked down to Amy, continuing to comb the hair back from her face as she lay motionless on the floor. "I think it might just be something a little more than the flu," he whispered as he watched over Amy's unconscious form. His hands trembled slightly as fear ran through his entire body.

He just prayed that it wasn't anything too serious.


	98. Ep 20: Confidence Man Pt3

**Part 3**

Nick felt his hands clench and unclench repeatedly at his sides as he stormed down the hospital corridor, watching as the ambos ahead intently. Amy had regained consciousness just before the ambulance arrived, however Nick had refused to accept her assurances that it was just exhaustion. Amy had never been the fainting type, so this had to be serious. This with the flu had to be a bad combination.

Zoe appeared from almost nowhere, raising her eyebrows at Amy before racing over to Nick. She grabbed his arm as she pulled him down closer to her level. "What's Amy doing here?" she demanded, staring at him impatiently as she waited for an answer.

"She, ah, passed out at the station," Nick explained as he waved his free arm towards the cubicle where Amy had just been taken. She was still lying down on the hospital bed, despite her many attempts to get out and walk. "She hasn't been well. She told me that she'd had the flu for a few months and was just feeling particularly rotten today."

Zoe's eyes narrowed as she considered Nick's words. "Flu?" she queried as she relinquished her grip on her husband's arms. "Is she coherent?"

"Ah, yes, Zoe. I do believe she is," he replied, offering her a tiny smile. "She was coherent enough to try to attack the ambulance officers and myself." Zoe nodded thoughtfully before giving Nick's arm a small squeeze. A hint of fear crept across Nick's face. "She is, well, going to be okay, isn't she? She's not…dying or anything…"

Her expression crumpled slightly as she rose up on tip-toe to plant a tender kiss on Nick's cheek. As she drew away, she shrugged weakly. "I guess we're just going to have to wait and see, Nick."

* * *

Amy pushed herself up to sitting as the ambulance officers finally left on another call, leaving her alone in the small hospital cubicle. She had some privacy at least, she reflected bitterly as she regarded the thin blue curtains with contempt. She detested hospitals at the best of times, let alone when she had been dragged in here by Nick Schultz.

Although she wouldn't say it, the fainting spell had worried her. It was another signal to her that something was very wrong. Her heart sank ever further in her chest as she realised that, whatever was wrong had been wrong for several months and she hadn't done a single thing to stop it. The thought of what it could be scared her. She'd already seen so many people die from diseases that could have been cured if they'd just been caught earlier – Brendan's wife, for starters. As she continued to dwell on what had been Megan Maguire's fate, she found herself beginning to hyperventilate.

Zoe slipped into the cubicle, pulling the curtain shut behind her. The presence of a familiar face calmed Amy somewhat as she tried to laugh off her previous concerns. "I don't know why Nick bothered to call an ambulance," she told Zoe with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I've been run down, I fainted, end of story."

"You lost consciousness for a brief period of time," Zoe told her as she stood over Amy, folding her arms across her chest as an expression of sympathy crept across her face. "Nick was right to call an ambulance. I'd be angry with him if he hadn't."

"It's nothing," Amy lied, perhaps a little too quickly. "I've had the flu for a few months and since the shooting, I just haven't been looking after myself well enough. I haven't been able to shake it off. All I need is some bed rest and antibiotics…"

Zoe chuckled as she stepped forwards, beginning to feel Amy's neck gently with her hands. "Well, forgive me Amy for not trusting your obviously very hard earned PhD," she retorted playfully, before stepping away with a slight frown on her face. "Your glands aren't swollen." She narrowed her eyes as she considered the police officer sitting in front of her. "When did the flu symptoms first set in?"

"Probably about late August, early September," Amy replied, watching as Zoe's eyebrows rose in disbelief. "I know I should have seen you earlier, but things were just so crazy with PJ's shooting that I just forgot all about it until recently."

"What sort of symptoms were they?" Zoe asked as she grabbed her stethoscope from around her neck. She instructed Amy to lean forward as she pressed the cold metal against her back.

In between obeying Zoe's instructions to breathe in and out deeply, Amy managed to reply. "I just felt generally off-colour," she explained. "I felt really lethargic and I was vomiting at once stage too."

"Nausea?" Zoe queried as she ordered Amy to sit back up and she returned her stethoscope to her neck. "Well, you don't have any congestion in your lungs and you don't seem to have the flu to me."

Amy stared at her, confusion passing through her face. Her heart pounded a little faster in her chest at Zoe's comment about her health. If it wasn't the flu, chances were that it was something much worse. "What is it, then?"

Zoe looked away as she grabbed a sheet of paper from a nearby table and began to scribble notes down on it. "Just let me run a few tests and we'll soon know."

A heavy lump formed in Amy's throat as she watched Zoe leave the cubicle, her expression one of distraction and curiosity. She had never been particularly religious, but she found herself praying. But, much like PJ a little under a year before, it wasn't to any distinguishable God or deity. It was to Tom Croydon, the man who had held her while she'd cried three and a half years previously. If she could believe that anyone could help her now, it had to be him.

* * *

Dash shifted the cardboard box in her arms as she stepped out of the Imperial Hotel and into the midday sunlight, enjoying the tingling effect that the warmth had on her skin. The box in her arms was stuffed full of white paper bags and soft drink bottles – her colleagues' lunches. She knew that this was a task that usually befell the least senior member of the station, but with Kelly and Joss out on patrol, it had become her duty.

She was stirred from her warm bliss by a firm hand on her shoulder. She spun with a start to find herself face to face with Aaron Richards and the sight brought a smile to her lips. "Aaron!" she exclaimed. "I hope PJ and Amy weren't too rough on you."

"No, no," he replied, reassuring her with a calming smile. "They were everything I had anticipated. I suspect that they'll be interested in talking to you, however. I've been warned that they aren't the sort to let sleeping dogs lie."

"You're telling me!" Dash told him with a chuckle. "I've known PJ for over ten years and he's still as single-minded as he ever was. I've only known Amy for a few months, but I get the feeling she's just the same."

Aaron shrugged, leaning back against the Imperial as he spoke. "I hope this doesn't affect your desire to contact your mother…"

Dash shook her head vehemently as she tightened her grip on the box. "No!" she assured him quickly. "Of course it doesn't! And I'm sure Kelly won't be anymore doubtful than I am."

"I hope not," Aaron replied quietly, his gaze becoming distracted as he looked away from Dash and stared up at the clear blue sky above them. "Kelly was very close to Tom Croydon and she needs his guidance in her life now more than ever before."

* * *

Nick returned the keys to their hook as he entered the muster room, surprised to find Kelly and Joss sitting at their desks, working away silently. He'd been warned that Kelly O'Rourke and Joss Peroni were handfuls, yet he hadn't seen a single sign of it since he'd arrived in Mt. Thomas. He'd heard about what had happened to Kelly and he suspected that that was to blame for it.

Joss looked up at Nick's entrance and shrugged as he looked around the rather empty station. "Where is everyone?" he asked as Kelly added her curious stare to Joss'.

"Well," Nick began, momentarily gathering his thoughts as to where the rest of his colleagues had gotten to. "Dash is out getting the lunches and apparently got lost along the way because she hasn't resurfaced yet, PJ is in South Yarra wining and dining some detective to find out about a case and Amy is in hospital." Concern spread across the Constables' faces at the mention of the word hospital in connection to Amy's name. Nick felt obliged to continue, if only to put them out of their misery. "She'll probably be fine," he assured them with a wave of his hand. "She just fainted, that's all."

With that, Nick crossed the floor to the door of Mark's office, inviting himself inside without even the courtesy of a knock. Kelly and Joss watched him go, before turning to share a moment of concern. "Amy hasn't really been well lately, has she?" Kelly queried, using her legs to drag her office chair around to Joss' desk.

He shook his head thoughtfully as his mind drifted back to when he and Amy had been trapped in a freezer and she had reacted so adversely to the cold. "No, I don't think she has," he admittedly worried.

"I think we should have realised this before she started passing out in the muster room," Kelly told him firmly, tiny tears of shame brimming in her eyes. "We were so preoccupied with our own lives that we forgot about the others around us. We should have noticed she wasn't well."

Joss nodded in agreement as he looked away, picking up a postcard from the far corner of his desk. He offered it over to Kelly, who took it hesitantly. "My Mum sent this over from Italy," he explained as he sat back in his chair. "She and Dad are moving back there. They keep pestering me to go visit."

Kelly skimmed through the message briefly before turning back to the picture on the other side. It was a beautiful image of a river, with a long winding street running along beside it. It was something the likes of which she'd never seen before in her life and highly doubted she'd ever see in Australia. "It's gorgeous," she whispered in awe, her eyes wide as she looked up to Joss. "You should go."

"What?" Joss asked with a laugh of disbelief. "To Italy? I couldn't…I don't think I could ever afford it for a start. Anyway…what about our careers?"

Realising that she had nothing to counter with, Kelly nodded in solemn agreement. "Yeah, you're right," she admittedly quietly as she handed the postcard back to Joss, her gaze lingering upon the image until Joss had stuffed it out of sight. "It's a silly idea."

She dragged herself back to her desk and, as she looked down at her paperwork once again, she found herself looking forward to her session with Aaron that night. It was something outside of the monotony of her current life, at any rate.

* * *

Mark's distracted frown lessened as Nick entered his office, not even feeling the need to wait for an invitation. On any other day, he might have had a bit of a go at Nick for that, even if only jokingly, but this was not any other day. It was the first anniversary of Tom's death, Amy had just collapsed and Piper Morris refused to return his calls for the umpteenth time. He motioned for Nick to sit as he leant across his desk, eagerly awaiting any news that his Sergeant had to offer.

"Amy was still conscious when I left," Nick explained in a strangely dead-pan voice. He regarded Mark coolly as he spoke, more a by-product of his worry for Amy than anything else. "Zoe hadn't gotten a chance to check her over properly. She wouldn't say whether or not it was serious."

Mark paused, nodding slowly at Nick's comment. "But you did mention that she had been sick for a few months," he probed, his face growing pale as he found himself considering a number of possibilities that he didn't quite like. "You don't think that Amy Fox could be seriously ill, do you?"

Nick shrugged in reply as he rose to his feet. "Well, for PJ and Amy's sakes, let's hope not." His simple and curt reply cut Mark deep inside as Nick rose to his feet and left the office without another word. Mark buried his head in his hands as he stared across his desk at the photograph that had been taken at Amy and PJ's engagement party. The pair just looked so happy, like the world was at their feet and just begging to be accomplished. That had only been three months ago, but it already felt like another lifetime.

"Please don't be sick, Amy," he begged Amy's image in a hoarse and barely audible voice. "That might just be the last straw that this station can take."

* * *

Amy sat alone on the hospital gurney, scratching at the bandaid on her left arm absentmindedly. Zoe had taken a blood sample and disappeared again, promising to be back as soon as pathology had finished with it. The loneliness was playing on Amy's mind, making her feel even worse than she already did. Even Nick Schultz had to be better company than she was right now. Her imagination was running away with her and making her consider the worst possible diagnoses. All she knew for certain was that she didn't have the flu.

Zoe finally returned, a folded sheet of paper held close to her chest. Amy stared at it curiously for a few seconds, her heart beginning to pound harder in her chest as a sickening lump formed in her throat. "You'll be pleased to know that your blood results are virtually normal," Zoe explained as she stood before Amy, a tiny glimmer in her eyes catching Amy's attention. "Your iron levels are a little low and you're probably a little dehydrated, but most of the results are well within normal ranges."

A great relief passed through Amy's face as she suddenly slouched forward, letting a heavy sigh escape her lips. "Thank God," she mumbled as she looked up to meet Zoe's gaze, shaking her head slowly. "You have no idea what I was thinking…"

"When was the last time you had a period?" Zoe queried, clutching the sheet of paper a little tighter to her chest.

Amy stared at her in confusion, narrowing her eyes as she struggled to remember. "Probably sometime in August…" She trailed off as she suddenly realised just what it was Zoe was suggesting. "But I sometimes miss my period if I'm really stressed and not well. I was really run down and an old friend had died. Then PJ was shot and my life just went out of control for a while. It's not really surprising that I'd miss my period. It's not what you think."

Zoe sat down on the bed beside Amy, shrugging pointedly. "What am I thinking, then?" she asked. "You're the detective."

"I'm infertile," Amy told her, ignoring Zoe's question completely. She couldn't quite say what it was Zoe was thinking, no matter how hard she tried. "When I was sixteen, I had a termination and about a year later I went to a doctor because my periods hadn't resumed and he diagnosed Asherman's syndrome. They removed the scar tissue from my uterus, but he said that there wasn't enough lining left for me to conceive, let alone carry to term." She watched Zoe nod thoughtfully, before continuing. "What you're thinking is impossible. It must just be a bug combined with stress and not eating well enough."

Without another word, Zoe handed the sheet of paper across to Amy. The detective took it reluctantly and opened it up, skimming over the results as her brow furrowed in confusion. "I had a bit of a hunch about what might have been wrong," Zoe explained, tapping the bottom of the page in an indication for Amy to skip the rest of the results. "I got pathology to check your human chorionic gonadotropin levels. That's a pregnancy hormone."

Amy's eyes widened in horror as her gaze fell upon a single word near where Zoe had pointed. She lowered the sheet of paper, staring blindly ahead. "Positive," she whispered, her hands beginning to tremble in surprise.

Zoe nodded slowly as she pried the blood test results from Amy's fingers, sitting it beside her on the bed. "The nausea you were experiencing earlier was most likely morning sickness," she explained gently. "Not all women get severe morning sickness. Some only have very mild nausea and vomiting and some get none at all."

"There must be some mistake," Amy whispered, still not looking back to meet Zoe's gaze. "Pathology must have gotten it wrong. There has to be some mistake…I was told that I could never have children. I can't be…"

"Pregnant?" Zoe finished, reaching out to take Amy's right hand in hers. This was enough to snap Amy back to attention as she turned to face the doctor. "I have heard of cases were the uterus lining has grown back after Asherman's. That result is so definitive…I'd say you'd be about three months pregnant."

"Three months?!" Amy gasped in shock, yanking her hand away from Zoe's grip. "Now that's impossible…I mean, I don't even look pregnant!"

Zoe chuckled at Amy's disbelief, combing a loose curl back behind her ear. "Women don't always show as much on their first pregnancy," she explained. "I was the size of a house by four months, but I was carrying twins. I've known women who haven't started showing until their fourth or fifth month. Give it time, I'm sure you'll start having a bump within a month or so…"

The despair and disbelief on Amy's face didn't vanish as she looked away again, burying her face in her hands. Zoe was certain that she even heard quiet sobs. Amy began shaking her head, never once looking up from her palms. "I can't be a mum," she whispered helplessly. "I'm not ready for this. I've spent half my life telling myself that I can't have kids and…" She hiccupped in between her tears before she finally lowered her hands, wringing them together in her lap. "I wasn't meant to be a mother."

Zoe reached out to take Amy's hand again, squeezing it encouragingly. "I'll book you in for an ultrasound tomorrow morning," she told her softly. "I want to check on the health of the baby and, if I'm right about how far along you are, it'd be about time for your three month ultrasound." She rose to her feet, grabbing the paper from beside her as she opened the cubicle curtain. "For what it's worth, Amy, you and PJ are going to make great parents."

With those words echoing through Amy's muddled brain; Zoe closed the curtain again, leaving Amy sitting alone with her thoughts. She stared down at her stomach, biting her bottom lip as she considered it curiously. She rubbed it thoughtfully with her right hand, unable to believe that there could ever be a child in there. She finally flopped back against the hospital pillows, passing a hand across her weary eyes. She wasn't dying, but this felt almost just as bad.


	99. Ep 20: Confidence Man Pt4

**Part 4**

Lyrics in this part come from _"Just Take My Heart" _by Mr. Big.

Amy slipped into the muster room, her entrance catching the attention of Kelly, Joss and Nick. Nick reached her first, grabbing her hands protectively. His grip was far too tight and made Amy wince in pain. "Are you alright?" Nick demanded in a worried and fearful voice. "What did Zoe say?"

"She, ah…" Amy trailed off as she cast her eyes to the CI office, where PJ was waiting in the doorway expectantly, his eyes clouded with anxious tears. She knew that PJ would be excited about having a child, even if she wasn't. But she didn't feel as though it would be right to tell him yet. She needed a chance to get a handle on it herself first. "She just said it was the flu," she told her colleagues with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I just need lots of fluids and a relaxing bath tonight." She pulled her hands free of Nick's and headed to the CI office. She stopped half-way there, realising that her colleagues were still eyeing her worriedly. "It's nothing," she assured them with a roll of her eyes. "You're just fussing."

PJ greeted her in the door, taking her hand within his. Unlike like Nick, PJ's touch was tender and sent the electric sparks of passion down Amy's spine. The thought of what she had growing inside of her made her stomach drop and the nausea return for the first time in at least a month. She feigned a small smile of reassurance as she slipped past him and back into the office. "So," she began, tidying her hair with a slightly trembling hand, "is Dash back yet?"

"Yeah," he replied, waving a hand down towards the mess room. "She's getting herself a snack. My mate in South Yarra had something for us."

"Oh yeah?" Amy queried as she sat back in her chair, surprised to find that her hands slipped down in front of her stomach instinctively.

He wheeled himself over to her, lowering his voice just in case Dash returned. "He suspected quite a few people of being Richards' accomplice – everyone from the local GP to his own partner. He even suggested that there might be more than one source that he's using."

"If you want to accuse me, just accuse me."

The sound of Dash McKinley's voice hit PJ and Amy like a bolt of lightning as they two spun to stare at her, watching as she invited herself into the CI office. She closed the door out to the muster room behind her, folding her arms across her chest. "If you think I've got something to do with Aaron Richards', then just say it."

PJ stared at Dash, his expression cool and almost accusing. "What did Maggie tell you about the gold mine?" he demanded. The two detectives watched as an expression of absolute confusion spread across Dash's face.

"The gold mine?" she queried, shaking her head as she appealed to Amy with her eyes. Amy remained silent; feeling somewhat distracted by what Zoe had told her. However, PJ seemed to be doing fine without her.

"1997?" he probed, folding his arms across his chest as he sat back in his wheelchair. "Maggie and I were trapped in that gold mine when it collapsed…Mags told you about the basketball team and reserve bench, didn't she?"

Dash's eyes narrowed in confusion as she shook her head in indignation. Tiny tears filled her eyes. "I don't know what you're talking about, PJ," she replied quietly. "Maggie never told me anything about what happened in that gold mine."

"Come on," PJ told her as his expression grew more desperate. "She must have told you, even if not at the time. You were best friends. She had to have told you about what we'd talked about down there at some point. Surely the discussion Maggie and I had about kids popped up…"

"No," Dash told him firmly, shaking her head sternly. "She never told me anything about what happened between you two in the gold mine. You could have been having hot sex down there for all I knew!"

Amy's eyes widened at Dash's comment and she looked over to PJ, raising her eyebrows at him in a silent query as to the truth of Dash's words. The guilty look on his face said it all – whatever else Maggie and PJ had said about kids, they'd also gotten up to a lot more than talking. "Dash," she interrupted, not quite willing to let PJ have another dig at her colleague. "Has Aaron Richards ever asked you to give him information about anyone? Has he…asked you to go through police records or for personal information about people like Maggie…"

"No," Dash repeated, not stopping to say more to Amy. She turned back to PJ, crossing her arms against her chest defensively. "What is your problem with Aaron?"

"He's a con-man, Dash," PJ explained, leaning forward in her chair and grabbing her hands. It was almost as though he felt by simply being closer to Dash; he could make his argument carry more weight. "He's using people who can't even defend themselves to make money. He's using your mother, your best friend…"

"He's not a con-man!" Dash snapped in reply, stamping her foot down hard against the office floor. "I believe that he's a spiritualist and that he's in touch with the people he says he is. It's the only explanation."

PJ paused, not daring himself to speak for several seconds in case he lost his temper again. Finally, he spoke, his voice quiet and perhaps more vicious then it would have been if he'd chosen to shout instead. "Well," he told her firmly, small tears glistening in his eyes. "That makes him a con-man and you a fool."

Not willing to stay a second longer in PJ's company, pulled her hands away from PJ and stormed out of the CI office, slamming the door so loudly behind her that even Mark's head snapped up. PJ sighed as he looked over to Amy, offering her a tiny smile of apology. Amy returned his gesture, before looking away to her laptop. "It's not me you need to apologise to, PJ," she told him gently. "I'm not the one you just insulted."

* * *

Kelly slipped into the Parlour of the Imperial Hotel with Aaron Richards in hot pursuit. He waited in the doorway for several minutes as an uneasy silence hovered between the pair. Kelly had started to wonder if this had been such a good idea, particularly after watching Amy and PJ go after him all day. But it had to be worth a try. Something in her life needed to change. "Take a seat," she offered, waving a hand over towards one of the lounge chairs. Aaron nodded slowly as he sat down, watching the blonde woman sit down opposite.

"This does work best if you have a strong belief in it," Aaron explained, resting his hands on his knees as he leant forward towards Kelly. She nodded cautiously in reply. "But I understand that you may be hesitant about it. Tom's warned me that you're not a spiritual person."

"Has he?" Kelly breathed, trying not to show her excitement too much. She found herself gripping the arms of the chair tightly, if only to stop herself from bouncing around off the walls. "What else does Tom have to say?"

Aaron stared at her kindly for a moment, before he continued. "That he's sorry," he told her simply. He watched Kelly's brow furrow in confusion before he decided to elaborate. "He knows how out of control he was after Grace's murder and he knows how much he took it out on you and the others. He's genuinely sorry for how long it took him to find himself again."

A hint of a smile played on Kelly's lips as a lone tear slid down her cheek. She felt her heart flutter madly in her chest, all hesitation long gone. She nodded slowly, not daring herself to speak at all.

"He was worried after you were raped," Aaron continued, the mention of Kelly's attack sending a shiver of fear down her spine. Uneasiness glimmered in her eyes as she drew back further into the chair, pulling her legs up to her chest. "But he knows how strong you are and how resilient you are. He's glad Amy Fox came back from Melbourne when she did. He's always had a lot of faith in her and he's proud of the way she's helped you. But he's most grateful for Peroni."

"Joss?" Kelly mumbled, hugging her knees closer to her body as she stared at Aaron imploringly.

Aaron nodded thoughtfully. "Tom is very happy for you and Peroni. He says that you make a good couple. Oh, and that your abilities to hide your relationship probably rival those of PJ and Maggie." He chuckled at his own comment, before continuing. "But there's something he needs you to know. He's worried about you. He's worried that you're making the same mistake that he made so often in life."

Kelly's eyes narrowed in confusion. "Mistake?"

"If there's one thing he regrets more than anything else, it's making too many decisions with his head rather than his heart and his gut," Aaron explained, reaching out to take Kelly's hand. She pulled it away quickly. "He's worried that you're only staying in Mt. Thomas because you think it's the sensible thing to do."

"What does Tom want me to do, then?" Kelly asked, resting her chin on her knees. She couldn't believe what Aaron knew or how he'd recognised her desire to get out of Mt. Thomas, even if only temporarily.

"He wants you to do what it is you've been agonising over," Aaron told her, his voice calm yet surprisingly firm. "Tom doesn't want you to spend your entire life just doing what you think is safe and sensible. He wants you to listen to your heart and do what it tells you."

Aaron's words rolled around Kelly's head, making her mind travel back to the postcard Joss had shown her at the station earlier that day. It only took her half a second to decide what it was Tom wanted her to do. She knew it was the right thing – it had to be. She hadn't felt this alive in ages.

* * *

Amy lay back in bed, curled up at PJ's side. They had both been lying in bed for hours, but she got the feeling that neither of them would be sleeping. She knew that it was far too early for the baby to be kicking her, but she had the horrible sensation of butterflies in her stomach. She suddenly wished that she could go back just twenty four hours in time and just freeze that moment, back before Aaron Richards and definitely before Zoe had told her about her pregnancy. Life had been so much simpler then.

_Where is our yesterday?_

_You and I could use it right now_

As PJ lay with his arms wrapped around her, Amy found herself noticing the way his hands seemed to drift to her stomach. He couldn't know about the baby, but it was almost as though he had discovered it by telepathy. She knew he'd be excited when she told him. That day's events had only confirmed her suspicions about PJ's desires for a family. But she couldn't even force herself to be happy about it. She felt scared and helpless. The thought of being completely responsible for another human being was simply overwhelming.

"A penny for your thoughts?" PJ queried, snapping Amy away from her thoughts. She picked herself up slowly and rolled over onto her side, feigning a smile as she reached out to place a soft and tender hand upon his cheek.

She found the smile difficult to maintain. "It's nothing," she lied weakly, hoping that her touch would be enough to persuade PJ not to press the point. "It's just been a bad day."

He nodded slowly as he used his arms to roll himself over to face her, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her closer to his body. Not for the first time, Amy found herself marvelling at how comfortably their bodies fit together, as though they were two jigsaw puzzle pieces. It made her wonder how a baby would ever fit in their little world of PJ and Amy.

Something about his eyes caught Amy's attention. Something was bothering him and had been since he'd woken her up that morning. She hadn't found the conviction to ask him yet and found that she still didn't have it now. Instead, rather than prying, she simply buried her face in his shoulder as she wrapped her arms tenderly around his neck. "Just hold me, Peej," she pleaded, her voice almost breaking and wobbling as she spoke.

PJ didn't need any further explanation. He tightened his grip on Amy slightly as they lay together, revelling in the tender silence of their bedroom and the pleasance of each other's company.

* * *

Joss jumped awake with a start as the sound of his doorbell echoed through his flat. He stumbled out of bed, yawning loudly and mumbling tired threats under his breath as he yanked the door open, only to leap back in surprise at the sight of Kelly O'Rourke. She had a huge grin on her face and looked the happiest he had seen her in months. She was practically bouncing all over his veranda. "Kel," he groaned, leaning back against the door frame. "Do you have any idea how bloody late it is?"

Kelly didn't answer his question. Instead she leapt forward, wrapping her arms around his neck as she pressed her lips tenderly against his. Her advances caught Joss so off guard that he nearly toppled back onto the floor. He wrapped his arms around her waist, revelling in the kiss until she eventually pulled away. She looked a little calmer now, but still excited.

"What's going on?" he asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He was a little more alert now, but still barely coherent. "It's the middle of the night."

She invited herself inside, closing the door to Joss' flat behind her. She turned to him with a shimmer of hope in her eyes. "Let's go to Italy."

Joss nodded slowly for a couple of seconds as he began to wander down the hallway. Kelly's words finally seemed to sink in, because he froze and spun back to Kelly with wide eyes and his jaw almost scraping along the floor. "What?!"

"I mean it," Kelly explained, approaching him as she wrapped her arms around his neck tenderly. "Let's go. We could visit your parents, travel, see some of the world before we settle down again. What's stopping us?"

He pulled away from Kelly, backing away with his eyes still wide. "Where do you want me to start?" he breathed in disbelief, shaking his head as he waved his arms wildly at his sides. "I mean…what about our jobs? You were the one who made such a big deal about 'career first, love later'!"

"Yeah, I know," she replied, taking Joss' hand within hers tenderly. "I've realised that there are more important things. I've wanted to get away for ages, but I've only just gotten the conviction to do it."

"This has got nothing to do with you meeting that spiritualist guy, is it?" Joss asked hesitantly.

Kelly shook her head vehemently. "No," she whispered, her voice losing a little bit of its overwhelming excitement as she wrapped her arms around Joss' left arm. She kissed his cheek tenderly. "He just reminded me that I was doing something that Tom Croydon did way too much of over the last few years."

"Which is…"

"Thinking too much with my head and not enough with my heart," Kelly told him, burying her face in his shoulder. Joss looked down to hear, using his free hand to play with her beautiful blonde hair absentmindedly. "I want to do this, Joss. I love Mt. Thomas. I love the people here and I love the police force. But I have to do this. And I want more than anything else in the world for you to come with me."

Joss found himself opening and closing his mouth as he tried to find some kind of explanation or excuse as to why he and Kelly couldn't just pick up and go. But he quickly realised that there just weren't any. He nodded slowly as he kissed her lips tenderly. "Tomorrow," he told her with a broad grin. "I'll book a flight for tomorrow afternoon."


	100. Ep 20: Confidence Man Pt5

**Part 5**

The usual hospital noise made Amy feel increasingly worse as she sat alone on the hospital bed, her bladder close to bursting and her heart pounding so hard and fast that she could almost physically hear it. She swung her legs backwards and forwards as she studied the room around her, in particular the ultrasound machine. It was scaring her. It was all going to be far too real once her baby was a moving grey blob onscreen.

Zoe Hamilton entered the hospital room, checking over a sheet of paper on her brown folder before looking up. Her eyes widened in surprise. "Where's PJ?" She watched as the detective before her shrugged blankly. "You haven't told him."

Amy looked up to Zoe pleadingly, her emerald eyes filling with tears. She began wringing her hands tighter in her lap. "I don't know what to tell him," she confessed quietly. "I mean…how do I tell him he's going to be a father when I can't handle being a mother? I can't do this, Zo. I just can't."

Zoe nodded as she set her folder aside and joined Amy on the bed. She wrapped a supportive arm around her shoulders as she pulled Amy to her side. She soon found herself absentmindedly playing with strands of Amy's dark hair. "I was so excited when I found out I was pregnant," she explained, holding Amy tighter to her. "I'd almost had to coerce Nick into having kids. But I was so frightened when I realised that I was carrying twins. I'd thought one baby would be enough, I didn't have a clue how I'd manage two."

Amy narrowed her eyes at Zoe's words as she feigned a weak smile. "You coped though," she told her pointedly. "I'd be a hopeless mother. I couldn't even recognise that I was pregnant; how the hell am I meant to recognise anything to do with this baby?"

Zoe pulled Amy away, staring imploringly into the younger woman's eyes. "Your fiancé had just been shot," she reminded her calmly. "PJ was facing life in a wheelchair. I can't even begin to fathom how difficult it must have been for you. Quite frankly, if something like that ever happened to Nick, I think a pig could go flying by and I wouldn't notice. The collapse yesterday was your body's last ditch attempt to tell you what was going on. I understand how it could have taken so long for you to realise."

Her hands shaking, Amy tried desperately to wipe away her tears. "Can we just get on with this?" she asked, staring at Zoe hard. The doctor finally nodded as she rose to her feet and headed over to the ultrasound machine. Amy once again found her hands travelling to her stomach as her thoughts drifted to PJ. Guilt overwhelmed her as she realised just how big a secret she was hiding from him.

"Lie back for me, Amy," Zoe told her, gesturing across the hospital bed. Amy did as she was told, the butterflies returning to her stomach. However, not for the first time, she found herself wondering if they were truly butterflies. "You'll probably feel a little uncomfortable…" Zoe continued as she gently lifted Amy's dark green suit shirt and spread a strange gel over her stomach. Amy winced as it touched her skin, feeling as though she'd just submerged herself in a pool on a hot summer's day.

Watching as Zoe switched on the ultrasound machine and began to press the ultrasound wand onto Amy's stomach. Amy winced again, the pressure combined with her full bladder making her feel distinctly uncomfortable. However, all other thoughts quickly vanished as an image began to emerge onscreen. It was a strange mass of grey that Amy quickly recognised as human. She had seen ultrasound images before and had never really realised what the fuss was about. In fact, most barely even appeared human to her. Yet, now she understood.

"Oh my God…" Amy whispered, her eyes growing wide as she stared into the screen. She was vaguely aware of Zoe pointing out the different features of the foetus, but she was too distracted to listen. She couldn't tear her gaze away from the screen as her hands clenched and unclenched at her sides.

Zoe looked over to Amy, suddenly realising that she wasn't listening whatsoever. A smile spread across her face as she reached over to take one of Amy's hands within her own. "You'll be a great mum," she assured her as Amy finally snapped back to attention long enough to offer Zoe a dazed kind of half-smile. "You've got a perfectly healthy three month old foetus in there and I get the feeling that you and PJ are going to make great parents."

* * *

PJ scratched his chin thoughtfully as he considered the notes lying across his desk. The Aaron Richards case had him thoroughly stumped. They had nothing. In the light of a new day, Dash's involvement made a lot more sense than it had when he'd called her a fool. She was naïve and making a fool of herself by putting so much trust in a man she barely knew, but she wasn't maliciously helping him rip off her colleagues. Dash wasn't capable of that kind of stunt.

The door to the CI office opened slowly as Dash McKinley peered inside. "Peej?"

He looked up as he used his arms to shift his position in his wheelchair before lacing his fingers back behind his head. "The doctor is in," he told her with a smile as she entered, closing the door silently behind her. "Look, about yesterday…"

"Maggie honestly never told me about what you two did down there," Dash explained as she grabbed Amy's chair and pulled it over to PJ's desk. "I bugged her constantly, but she never betrayed you. Not to say I didn't have my suspicions, but…"

"I want to speak to Aaron again…" PJ began, only to be cut off by Dash's shaking head.

Dash paused at the look of confusion on PJ's face, before shrugging sadly. "He's left town," she explained quietly. She almost jumped back, anticipating a negative reaction from PJ, but it never came. Instead, his brow furrowed as he leant forward, burying his face in his hands. "He rang me late last night to say that he's done what he came to Mt. Thomas to do. He's delivered the messages he had to deliver and he's moved on."

"He's skipped town," PJ grumbled, peering up at Dash from behind his fingers. Dash shook her head vehemently.

"No," she told him as she drew a scrap of paper out from the pockets of her police pants and pushed it across to PJ. He lowered his hands as he took it, considering the blue biro scrawl intently. "He's staying at that hotel in Evanleigh," Dash explained. "You're more than welcome to inform the coppers there about him, if you feel it's necessary. Aaron said that he understands why you're so reluctant to believe him. He said that your mother said that your father's death destroyed your faith…"

PJ frowned as he looked up from the slip of paper, fixing Dash with a stern expression of contempt. It was enough to stop Dash mid-sentence. "I'll inform Evanleigh CI about him," he told her as he set the slip of paper aside. "They might be able to keep an eye on him." He paused as he stared at her, shaking his head in disbelief. "I don't know why you'd get involved with someone like him, I really don't. I don't think people should be disproportionately hailed as saints in death, but they shouldn't be used like that. Not when they can't defend themselves."

Dash sighed, shrugging dejectedly. "I didn't expect you to understand, PJ," she replied, a tiny smile spreading across her lips. "We cope with grief in different ways. I just needed to hear what Mum had to say about her granddaughter. I had to give myself that much. You might very well feel the same when you have kids, some day."

PJ chuckled bitterly at Dash's comment. "I'm not counting on kids ever happening," he pointed out as his expression became one of longing. "I'm getting older. I'm well into my forties. By the time kids come up for me, I might just be past it." He offered Dash a small smile. "But I love Amy. No matter how much I want kids, it'd all mean nothing if Amy wasn't a part of it. She's not interested in talking about children right now and that's fine by me. I'm the happiest man alive just to have her in my life."

"I wouldn't say never if I were you," Dash interjected, a cheeky smile playing on her lips as she reached across the take PJ's hand encouragingly. "Aaron told me that Jo got in touch with him."

A look of absolute horror spread across PJ's face. It had been bad enough that Maggie and his mother had been used against him, but to have Aaron Richards using Jo's memory as well made his temper boil. "And what did Jo have to say?" he asked, his voice sceptical.

Dash did her best to ignore PJ's scepticism. "Jo is really sorry that you never got a chance to tell her how sorry you were," she explained, lowering her voice to a soft whisper. "But she knows now and she forgives you. She's proud of you for how much you've changed Amy's life for the better. You've given her a second chance in life and Jo is proud to have ever known you. She said that your dream of having kids might not necessarily be so far away."

"Did she now?" PJ queried, folding his arms across his chest. However, despite his best attempts to feign impatience and annoyance with Dash's words, a part of him really wanted to hear it. He'd never gotten the chance to set things right with Jo as he had with Maggie or his mother. He would have given almost anything just for the chance to say sorry.

Dash nodded cautiously in reply. "And there's something else Jo wanted you to know too…tell Amy about having feeling back in your legs. The only way she can ever forgive herself completely for what happened to you is by letting her be involved in your recovery. The feeling is not a dream. Tell her."

* * *

Amy stared wistfully down at the ultrasound photos, biting her bottom lip absentmindedly. It was impossible to comprehend that this was the child she and PJ had conceived together when she had spent half her life telling herself that this could never happen. Having children and raising a family had become an impossible dream that she never let herself entertain. She couldn't; it was just too painful.

The mess room door opened, causing Amy to jump in surprise. She closed the plain cream folder hurriedly and stuffed it underneath the International Roast jar, her heart pounding wildly in her chest as she spun back to find herself face to face with Nick Schultz.

He towered over her as Amy reached back to grab at the bench, shooting him a weak death glare. "Haven't you ever heard of knocking?" she demanded harshly, watching as Nick's lips twisted to form a smile.

"Well, you see Foxtrot," Nick replied, chortling slightly as he spoke. "I'm six foot tall and I'm a policeman. I generally don't need to knock." Amy rolled her eyes as she slipped over to one side, keeping an eye on the ultrasound folder as Nick stepped forward to make himself a coffee. As he grabbed his mug from the mess room shelf, he turned to her thoughtfully. "You want one?"

She nodded as she combed her fingers back through her recently trimmed fringe, still not tearing her gaze away from the cream folder. Alarm spread through her features as Nick grabbed the coffee jar, his gaze falling upon the folder beneath it. He looked to Amy, raising a curious eyebrow.

"That's private," she explained, leaping forward as she made a grab for it. Much to her disappointment, Nick snatched it up, pulling it away out of arm's length. Her eyes narrowed in contempt, yet still betrayed her true fear. She folded her arms across her chest as she regarded him coldly. "Give it back."

Nick ignored Amy's orders, instead opening the folder gingerly, almost as though he expected it to burst into flames at his mere touch. His eyes widened at the sight of the ultrasound photos as a strange noise escaped his lips. It was a kind of stunned realisation that made Amy's stomach drop heavily. "Oh, Amy…" he mumbled, his shock even causing him to forget to call Amy by her nickname. It was serious if even Nick Schultz couldn't make a joke.

"Those aren't mine," Amy snapped as she leapt forward, taking advantage of Nick's moment of weakness to snatch the folder back from his hands. "I'm…minding them. For a friend."

"Yes," Nick grumbled doubtfully as he leant back against the bench, nodding to himself. "For a friend." A heavy silence hung over the mess room, before Nick's face suddenly grew blank. "But I thought you said you were infertile…"

Amy rolled her eyes as she clutched the folder to her stomach in a kind of instinct that she still didn't understand. She quickly rose the folder, holding it to her chest instead. "Yeah well, I was," she replied curtly as she shrugged. "I had the abortion, it was botched, they said I couldn't have kids and apparently now I can."

He nodded thoughtfully as he suddenly jumped forward, racing to the door as he realised with a start that he'd left it open. He pushed it closed hurriedly before slumping back against it. "How long have you known?"

"Since yesterday," she explained, shrugging once again for a lack of anything better to do. "I'm about three months. Zoe said that I probably collapsed because I'd managed to ignore every other sign my body was giving me." Her voice suddenly crumbled as she sank back against the bench, sliding down to the ground with a dazed kind of expression on her face. "I can't do this."

Nick's eyes grew wide. "What do you mean, you can't do this?" he demanded in a hoarse whisper, just in case Dash or one of their other colleagues had decided to listen in. "Of course you can. PJ will be over the moon, he'll be there for you. We all will. It's the most natural thing in the world…"

"Not to me, it's not," Amy interrupted, shaking her head slowly as tiny tears began to trickle down her cheeks. "I don't want kids. I don't want to be a mum. It wasn't meant to be."

Nick crept across the mess room, crouching down across from Amy as he reached over to take her hand within his. He almost had to pry her fingers from the folder first, which she clutched so tightly and protectively to her chest. He rubbed the back of Amy's hand with his thumb, staring imploringly into her eyes. "You don't really mean that."

"Don't you tell me what I do and don't mean, Nick Schultz!" Amy snapped, yanking her hand away. "You have no idea how I feel right now or how I've ever felt about anything…"

"It's in your eyes," Nick continued, almost as though he hadn't heard a word Amy had just said. "It's in the way you're holding that folder." At Nick's comment, Amy found herself absentmindedly pulling the folder tighter to her chest. "Beneath all that disbelief and fear, there's a little glimmer of hope. No matter how much you say you don't want this, you do. You want this child more than just about anything else on this earth."

Amy rose a hand to her cheek, absentmindedly wiping away a tear. An uncomfortable lump rose up into her throat as she considered Nick's words, finally realising that he was right. She did want this. She wanted this child, no matter how much she told him that she didn't. A tiny sob escaped her lips. "You don't know what it's like, Nick," she told him in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper. Nick placed a soothing hand on her knee as she spoke. "I was seventeen years old. I'd just starting thinking that maybe the abortion was behind me. You don't know what it's like to be told that you can forget about having a family, that your only option for having kids is adoption. Hell, I was only a kid myself!"

Nick nodded slowly as he squeezed her knee encouragingly. "No," he admitted finally, sighing thoughtfully. "I don't know. But I do know that you've got to tell PJ. You can hardly hide it from him forever."

Amy stared at Nick, her eyes narrowed in silent thought. However, just as she opened her mouth to respond, the door opened and Mark peered inside, his eyes widening in concern at the tears sliding down Amy's cheeks. He appeared to be about to pry, until a single glare from Nick changed his mind. "Kelly and Joss are leaving for the airport," he explained, motioning out back over his shoulder. "You might want to come say goodbye."


	101. Ep 20: Confidence Man Pt6

**Part 6**

Lyrics in this part come from _"A Whole New World" _from Aladdin and _"Run To Me" _by Emmanuel Carella.

Amy and Nick slipped out to the front of the station, only to find that the rest of their colleagues had already gathered. Kelly's car sat out on the street, the back packed full of luggage. A pang ran through Amy's heart as her colleagues turned back to face her. Sunshine Kelly and Idiot Peroni had really grown up and were about the fly the nest.

"I guess this is it," Kelly whispered as she approached Mark, Joss at her side. The Senior Sergeant smiled down at his youngest recruits, a hint of pride running through his features. Whatever else had happened over the last four and a half years, the two Constables before him had become more like his kids than his own. "Sorry I yelled at you after Tom died," she apologised with a half-smile.

"And for speeding on my first day in the job," Joss added, a chuckle playing on his lips.

"And for not telling you about Roy Holland," Kelly continued.

"And for crashing the patrol car once…or twice…or three times…"

"And for…"

Mark shook his head, a light kind of laughter escaping his lips. Yet, mixed in with the pride and the happiness was a melancholy that seemed to make him look considerably older than he was. He'd miss his young Constables, the ones he'd nurtured and looked out for ever since their Probation days. Their apologies only served to remind him of how much he missed life's old simplicity and how little of it seemed to remain in their Mt. Thomas. "Stop it," he told them, reaching out to pull Kelly close to his chest.

She seemed to almost bounce around in his grasp and he could have sworn that he could feel the energy pulsing through her. If any other of his officers had told him that they were running off to Italy, he would have questioned them and worried that they were doing something rash. But he could tell that this was the right thing for Kelly and Joss. They were happier and more hopeful than they had been in a very long time. That was enough to tell him that this was the right thing to do.

"You're a good Senior Sergeant," Kelly told him as she pulled away, tiny tears beginning to slide down her cheeks. "Tom would be proud."

As Kelly stepped back, Joss moved forward, grasping Mark's hand firmly in a hand shake. "I'll spare you the hug," he told his boss with a laugh, which Mark easily returned.

"Evan was wrong about you," Mark observed, earning a confused stare from Joss. Realising that Joss didn't understand what he meant, Mark elaborated. "The day you first started here. He called you Probationary Constable Idiot. He was wrong. We all were. You're a fine police officer. You've got a bright career ahead of you when you get back from Italy." At this comment, Mark looked up from Joss and glanced over to Kelly, offering her a beaming smile. "You both will."

The pair mumbled an embarrassed thanks as they moved along, approaching Nick who towered over them. A cheeky smile was moving across his face. "You two weren't so bad after all," he told them as Kelly threw herself into his arms.

"Too bad we can't say the same about you," Kelly retorted, as Joss stifled a chuckle from behind her.

Nick shook his head as Kelly pulled away, his smile still broadening as the beginnings of tears formed in his piercing eyes. "Oh, you'll keep Sunshine," he mumbled, not even able to keep a hint of bitterness in his voice. He looked over to Joss as Kelly pulled away, staring at him hard. "You be good to her, you hear me? Because if I hear you're doing anything stupid like busting a move on her, then I swear, there won't be a place to hide in all of Europe."

Joss nodded as he looked over to Kelly, their eyes shining as their gazes met. "Of course I'll be good to her," he replied. "Of course I will."

Dash suddenly leapt forward, throwing her arms around Kelly. The younger blonde barely even had a chance to respond before Dash started. "You had better write," she told her, squeezing her so hard that Kelly was surprised her ribs didn't break. "You're going to love it over there, I swear you will. It's such a beautiful country."

"I'll write," Kelly promised, squeezing Dash weakly in reply. "You guys will hear all about Italy, whether you want to or not."

Nick gave a mock groan as Dash pulled away, elbowing him in the stomach. He gave a loud cry of 'kidding' as Dash moved along to Joss. "I wish we'd gotten a chance to get to know each other better," she told him, taking his hand and shaking it firmly. Yet, there was a hint of regret in the way she held it.

Joss sighed as he nodded, offering Dash a smile of reassurance. "There's still time to get to know one another," he told her with a laugh as he pointed over to PJ and Amy. "We've still got to come back for the wedding yet. Mt. Thomas hasn't seen the last of us."

"No, I don't think it has," Dash replied with a sad laugh as Kelly and Joss moved along, coming face to face with PJ.

"You take care of yourselves, alright?" PJ told them as Kelly crouched down, hugging him tightly. He hugged her back in reply, grinning as they broke away. Tears slid freely down his cheeks as his voice wavered, his whole strength dedicated solely to stopping himself from breaking into great choking sobs. Kelly and Joss were like his little sister and brother. He'd miss them. "I don't want to hear that you've been getting yourselves into trouble over there."

Kelly nodded, squeezing PJ tighter. "You look after yourself, too," she replied, a quiet sob escaping her lips. "You deserve to be happy. You've done so much for me and for us and I can't repay you…"

PJ chuckled as he pulled away, holding Kelly's shoulders firmly. "You enjoy yourself," he told her encouragingly. "You're a good, strong, beautiful person. I admire you." As Kelly stood up and stepped back, the tears well and truly flowing, PJ looked up to Joss, accepting the younger man's handshake. "And you," he began with a laugh. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"You know, that does the door wide open..." Joss responded heartily, before continuing. "Thank you. For…well, everything."

Kelly and Joss' gazes lingered upon PJ for a long moment before they moved along to Amy, who was feigning a weak smile from beyond her silent tears. Suddenly, Kelly was upon her, squeezing her tightly as she began to cry loudly.

"Please don't start crying," Amy told her, laughing in between her own silent sobs. "You're going to get me started." She squeezed Kelly as clumps of the younger woman's clothing gathering in her closed fists. "PJ is right. You're beautiful and strong and I admire you."

Kelly shook her head as she buried her face in the crook of Amy's shoulder. "Not half as strong as you," she pointed out, still clinging to Amy tightly. "You're everything I'd want to be. Thank you. Thank you for coming back to Mt. Thomas when you did. You saved all of us. If you hadn't been there after I was raped, I don't know what would have happened…"

Amy pulled away, holding Kelly tightly in her hands. "You would have coped," she told her firmly. "You would have coped whether I'd been here or not." Amy reached up, allowing herself to play with Kelly's fine blonde strands of hair. It was almost like silk between her fingers. "I'll miss you," she admittedly quietly. "You're our little ray of sunshine."

Kelly smiled sadly as she moved away, along Joss to come forward. However, instead of shaking Amy's hand, he stepped forward, hugging her to his chest. "You're gutsy," he told her as he clapped her back gently. He pulled away, holding Amy at arm's length. "You do what's right as opposed to what's easy. I'd like to one day be as good a copper as you are."

"You're pretty gutsy yourself," Amy reminded him, smiling proudly as she reached up to run a soft hand along his cheekbone, as though it might make her words have more impact. "I can't think of too many coppers who'd run out into a gunman's firing line like you did. You're a good police officer and you've got a bright future. Just don't waste it."

"I wasn't planning on wasting a single moment," Joss replied, before looking over to Kelly. Suddenly, he reached out to loop his arm around her waist as he drew her close to him, stealing a long and passionate kiss. The absolute horror that passed through their colleagues was extraordinary. The only two who didn't react were Amy and PJ, who instead sharing a knowing glance as they reflected back to that April night when Amy had found Kelly and Joss half-dressed in the mess room.

Without another word, Joss and Kelly climbed into the car, barely able to contain their laughter. The stunned looks remained as they looked to one another, smiling broadly. "Where to, my love?" Joss asked as he started the engine, grabbing the steering wheel with one hand as he took Kelly's hand with his other.

"You're an idiot, Peroni," Kelly laughed, turning back to stare almost longingly out the window as they pulled away from the curb. She reached back to wave, her colleagues finally coming to their senses as they waved back in reply. She didn't stop waving until Joss had turned a corner and the Mt. Thomas Police Station had disappeared from view.

Kelly sank back into her seat, a distant smile spreading across her face. The warm November sunlight filtered in through the window and ran over her face as she closed her eyes, basking in the light feeling flowing through her body. The world was theirs to discover and she knew that they'd do it together.

_A whole new world_

_Every turn a surprise_

_With new horizons to pursue_

_Every moment gets better

* * *

_

Mark turned back to his colleagues, a bemused expression on his face. "So they were together after all," he mumbled, shaking his head in disbelief. "I should have seen it…"

As Nick and Dash turned to follow Mark back inside the station, PJ wheeled himself over to Amy, his expression growing ever more distracted as he noticed the way Amy's brow furrowed and she bit her bottom lip. A rush of adrenaline ran through his body as he considered what he had to do. Whether Dash's advice had really come from Jo Parrish or not, she was right. Amy had to know. The only way she could ever forgive herself was to be a part of the recovery. "Amez?"

Amy turned back to PJ, almost leaping several metres into the air. She chuckled nervously as she tidying her hair, her eyes still betraying her true distraction. "Sorry, Peej," she told him with a weak smile. "I was a million miles away."

"I can see that," he replied, reaching up to take her hand within his. He kissed it tenderly, sending a pink blush through Amy's pale cheeks. He found himself momentarily preoccupied from his own thoughts by the sickly appearance Amy still had. It worried him. "I think there's something I need to tell you…"

She nodded slowly, beginning to bite her bottom lip again as her focus returned to what Zoe had told her, to the tiny child growing inside of her. "I think I've got something I need to tell you too…" Amy trailed off as a stab of pain ran through her stomach. A groan of surprise escaped her lips as she clutched at her stomach, her breathing becoming shallow and uneven.

PJ froze, his eyes widening as he realised something was wrong. He found himself feeling utterly useless as Amy gave another groan of pain, this time clutching even harder at her abdomen as she doubled over. He found himself torn as he watched his fiancée suffer, before reversing back towards the station. "Nick!" he cried, tears of shock and fear filling his eyes. "Nick! Someone! Help!"

Amy was vaguely aware of PJ returning as her legs finally gave way beneath her, causing her to fall to the footpath uncomfortably. The pain in her stomach was becoming more intense by the second and was overwhelming everything else around her. Her vision was swirling and drifting out of focus, making her feel ill. Numbly, she found herself realising what was going on. She closed her eyes tightly as the realisation spread over her and she let out a loud sob.

Nick raced outside, nearly loosing as he turned the corner at breakneck speed. He hurried past PJ before crouching down beside Amy. PJ wheeled himself over quickly, his whole body beginning to tremble. "I don't know what's wrong," he whispered, his voice wobbling and breaking as he spoke. "She just started moaning in pain…"

Barely listening to PJ's words, Nick looked Amy over with narrowed eyes. He got the feeling he knew what was wrong and his heart broke in his chest at the very thought.

Amy was losing the baby.

* * *

PJ wheeled himself backwards and forwards in his wheelchair, his heart pounding at record speed in his chest as the minutes ticked by. It hurt him very badly to think about what could possibly be wrong with his fiancée, yet he couldn't stop his mind from whirling around. She must have lied about the flu, he realised numbly. Something much more serious was going on and no one was telling him.

Nick leant back against a nearby wall, his arms folded against his chest as he stared hard into his black police boots. Zoe had taken Amy off into some room when the ambulance had arrived at the hospital and he and PJ had heard nothing since. Yet, he got the feeling he didn't need Zoe's diagnosis to know what was wrong.

"Why didn't I realise she was sick?" PJ demanded, his voice cutting the silence as though it were a knife. It caused Nick's head to snap up in surprise, only to see that his best friend had stopped moving his wheelchair and was instead gripping at the wheels so tightly that his knuckles were white. "I should have seen it; all the signs were there…"

Nick shook his head, an uncomfortable lump rising into his throat. "What would you have done, eh?" he asked, staring imploring at PJ. "Bundled her up in cotton wool? She'll be right…"

"How can you say that?" PJ demanded in reply, staring at Nick in disbelief and outrage. Nick's dismissive nature had gotten under his skin and was infuriating him in a way Nick never had before. "She collapsed yesterday, she's been sick for months…she could be bloody dying in there for all you bloody know!"

Again, Nick shook his head before replying, yet this time his voice was awfully small and was almost lost in the usual hospital commotion. "She's not dying," he explained, pausing to watch PJ's brow furrow in confusion. Just before PJ asked him how he knew that, he continued. "Just trust me, she's not dying."

PJ stared at Nick blankly before anger overtook his features. He wheeled himself up to Nick, staring hard at his old friend. "You know what all this is about, don't you?" he mumbled, watching as Nick's calmness caved in.

Nick nodded slowly in reply. As PJ's frustration and outrage grew, he found himself becoming nervous. He tried to back away, only to remember that he was already up against a wall. "Mate," he began, shaking his head in the hopes in would calm PJ down. "She swore me to secrecy…"

"I don't bloody care if the Prime Minister swore you to secrecy!" PJ interrupted. Hot tears of worry were sliding down his cheeks as his normally calm and gentle blue eyes grew irrational and distressed. "I love that girl and if you know what's wrong with her, then I want you to tell me right now before I…"

Nick gulped, realising that he had to tell him. Amy was never going to get her chance to tell PJ about the baby – it was going to be him. "She's pregnant."

Nick's two words sent a sudden chill through PJ's spine. He froze, every ounce of anger and frustration evaporating from his body. His mind, once whirling with thoughts and emotions, was now surprisingly blank. He could barely even find the mental capacity to repeat Nick's words. "She's pregnant?"

Nodding, Nick felt the lump slowly begin to disappear in his throat. "Three months," he explained, cautiously stepping away from the wall as PJ wheeled himself backwards. "I only found out today myself when I found the ultrasound images."

PJ found that his mind was still blank as his heart began to beat a little faster in his chest. A light smile crept across his lips as his eyes began to shine with hope and joy. "I'm going to be a daddy," he whispered. As the realisation of what Amy's pregnancy meant set in, he found it hard to contain himself. As it was, he would have been bouncing off the corridor walls if not for the wheelchair. He looked up to Nick, shaking his head in disbelief. "God, I'm going to be a father. We're going to be parents…"

Nick shook his head, tears of regret filling his tender eyes. He felt a strong pang go through his heart as he contemplated Amy's situation and what could have been if it had never occurred. "I wouldn't be getting your hopes up like that, mate."

"Why?" PJ demanded, shaking his head. "She's pregnant…" His expression suddenly grew blank as he remembered just where he was and what had happened. He turned back to Nick, very nearly ramming him up against the wall again in frustration. "Something's wrong," he breathed, almost beginning to hyperventilate. "Something's wrong with the baby…"

"I'd say so, yeah," Nick replied, nodding slowly as he clapped PJ on the shoulder in an encouraging kind of way. Yet, there was a kind of understanding that formed between them, as though the pain that was to come was one they both understood. "I saw this happen three times with Zoe before the twins were born," he explained in a soft voice which barely met PJ's ears. "She's miscarrying."

* * *

Amy sat back into the pillows of the hospital bed, the white hospital gown making her itchy and uncomfortable. Yet, the gown was the last thing she could think about as her mind whirred at top speed, processing thoughts and feelings that she barely understood. Zoe hadn't done or said much, but she didn't have to. Amy already knew what had happened. She'd known from the moment she'd started suffering pains back at the station and the bleeding had only confirmed it. She'd miscarried. The baby was gone.

Zoe was working at the far end of the room, scrawling something done on a sheet of paper. She finally returned to Amy, hanging the folder back at the food of the hospital bed before approaching Amy herself. There was a pleading look in Amy's eyes, one which Zoe recognised well. It was that of a mother just wanting to hear that the unthinkable hadn't happened to her unborn child. "I'll schedule you in for an ultrasound this afternoon," she explained, barely able to meet Amy's gaze.

"It's gone, isn't it?" Amy whispered, her voice almost lost in her throat. Zoe stared at her for a few long seconds before eventually nodding slowly.

"I'm sorry," she whispered in reply as she sat down on the bed beside Amy, reaching over to take her hand within hers. Amy pulled away, wrapping her arms around her stomach as she rolled over.

A strange kind of emptiness welled within Amy as she stared blindly at the wall of the hospital room, silent tears making their way down her cheeks. It was a feeling that she could never have anticipated after years of thinking she was infertile. It almost physically made her heart ache as she contemplated a life that was never lived. The child she and PJ had conceived, yet was never going to be. "I should have realised that I was pregnant sooner."

Zoe shook her head as tears sprung up in her eyes. "No," she whispered in reply, reaching over to rub Amy's shoulder soothingly. "No. It's not your fault. It probably wouldn't have mattered if you'd discovered at three weeks or three months. If the pregnancy was going to end in miscarriage, then chances are that it was always going to end in miscarriage, no matter what you did."

"Then why did it happen?" Amy asked, rolling back over and fixing Zoe with a desperate, pleading expression. "Why did I miscarry?" Her voice became slightly hysterical as she spoke, as though it was carrying the weight of a million shattered hopes and dreams.

"I don't know," Zoe replied with a shrug as she reached up to brush a strand of dark fringe from Amy's shimmering emerald eyes. "Most miscarriages happen for no reason. The foetus might have had a genetic problem or it could have been anything…"

Several soft sobs escaped Amy's lips as she stared at Zoe, shaking her head in disbelief. "But you told me just this morning that the baby was fine," she reminded her. "If it had a genetic problem…"

"Then we probably wouldn't have known until it was born," Zoe pointed out with a heavy sigh. "It's hard, I know, but you'll probably never know why this happened…"

"How would you know?" Amy snapped, glaring at Zoe pointedly. "You didn't miscarry. You gave birth to two perfectly healthy baby boys…"

Zoe sighed regretfully as she looked away, tears of remembrance shining painfully clear in her eyes. "But I miscarried three times before they were born," she explained as she turned back to Amy, waiting for Amy's reply. However, she only got a curious stare in response, prompting her to continue. "The first time, we just put it down to luck. The second time, we thought that it was just coincidence. By the third time, I was convinced that the baby we wanted just wasn't going to happen. I told Nick we should stop trying, that we were just genetically incompatible or too old for it. He eventually managed to convince me to give it one more month. It was fourth time lucky." A distant smile spread across Zoe's face as she met Amy's eyes, shrugging thoughtfully. "We never found out why I miscarried and we did go on to have two healthy boys, but it does still hurt. It always does. I always wonder about the three children that never were."

Amy nodded as she considered Zoe's story. She absentmindedly brushed at her tears with the back of her hand, before shaking her head as a fresh wave of guilt overwhelmed her. "I must have done something to cause this," she whispered, sobbing quietly. "Other women can carry babies without any problem and I can't. I must have done something wrong. This has to be my fault."

"Don't you dare blame yourself, Amy Fox," Zoe told her in reply as she reached over, pulling the younger woman into a hug. She could feel Amy bury her face in her shoulder as she rubbed her back soothingly. "You've done nothing wrong. He pulled this stunt all on his own."

Confusion crept in Amy's face as she pulled away, staring at Zoe with narrowed eyes. "He?" she queried, her voice wobbling so much that she could barely manage the single syllable.

Zoe nodded dismally as she wrapped her arms around Amy again, holding her to her chest again as the younger woman began to cry in earnest. "It was a boy."

* * *

Amy didn't know how long she'd been crying. Darkness had fallen over Mt. Thomas, bringing an almost soothing coolness to her hospital room. Her stomach still ached somewhat, something that Zoe had promised would pass in time. Zoe had held her for ages, letting her sob into her white hospital coat until an emergency case came in. She'd been alone ever since, not sure if she had the strength to see anyone. She had never craved sleep as badly as she did, yet her eyes simply couldn't close without seeing images of blood and tiny, barely formed babies.

The hospital had grown silent with nightfall. In a way, the silence was almost reassuring. She didn't have to answer to anyone or explain how she felt when she really didn't know if it even had words. There was a kind of bitterness there though, one which made her feel like crying, screaming and throwing up all at once. There would never be the baby bump that Zoe had assured her yesterday she'd have soon. None of the hopes and dreams she had considered over the last twenty four hours or so would ever come to be. Not with her little lost son, anyway.

The hospital door opened with a creak which almost made Amy physically jump. In shock, she nearly began crying again, only to find that she was out of tears. As she calmed her racing heart, she realised that it was PJ sitting in his wheelchair, watching her worriedly from the doorway. Resting in his lap was a large teddy bear, one which was almost bigger than his torso.

Amy opened her mouth to speak, perhaps to offer him some kind of apology, but the words simply wouldn't come. Silent tears streamed down PJ's cheeks as he approached her, peering out from behind the teddy bear. "Nick told me about the baby," he whispered, sitting the teddy bear up on the bedside table before using his arms to shuffle onto the bed beside Amy. He reached over, tenderly brushing her soft hair back behind her ear. "He and Zoe said you'd miscarried."

She nodded slowly, looking away from him as a kind of shame passed through her features. "It was a boy," she choked as she pulled her knees up to her chin, hugging them to her. Yet, as PJ watched her, he got the distinct impression that it was not her knees she wanted to be hugging. "I'm so sorry. I should have told you I was pregnant. You should have gotten the chance to know your unborn son…"

PJ wrapped an arm around Amy's shoulders as he drew her close, tilting her chin up so that she was staring into his eyes. He shook his head, his expression calm and loving. "It wouldn't have made any difference in the world," he told her gently. "You were trying to tell me. I understand."

Amy forced a weak smile as she pulled away from PJ slightly, nodding towards the large stuffed teddy bear. "You should try to get a refund on that bear," she told him with a half-hearted chuckle.

"No, it's for you actually," PJ explained as he reached back, grabbing the bear. He offered it over to Amy, who took it hesitantly. "It doesn't bite."

The bear was cute, Amy thought to herself with a tiny smile. It was almost silky soft to touch, with a delicate light brown fur. It had dark brown eyes sown on and a thick baby blue coloured ribbon tied in a bow around its neck. Amy cuddled it to her chest, before noticing the writing embroidered into the ribbon in a slightly dark shade of blue. "Baby boy," she read, looking up to PJ in surprise. "Zoe told you…"

He nodded as he reached out to run his hand along the bear's arm. "It's a sort of memorial, I suppose," PJ replied with a thoughtful shrug. "A little way of remembering our baby boy."

Amy nodded as she held the bear to her tighter. It was a nice gesture and she got the feeling that this was about to become the most treasured teddy bear in the whole of Mt. Thomas. A tiny hint of a genuine smile played on her lips. "Thank you, Peej," she told him as she buried her face in the bear's fur. It even carried a hint of PJ's scent, something which had never failed to reassure her since the day of the fishy hankie incident.

"I've got something I need to tell you," PJ continued, beginning to wring his hands together in his lap as he contemplated the secret he had been carrying for almost two whole days. Amy had to know, now more than ever. "Yesterday morning…"

Her eyes narrowed as she stared at PJ, her own troubles momentarily forgotten as she stared imploring into PJ's eyes. "When you woke me up with all your fidgeting?"

He nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah," he replied. "I…I…I've got feeling back in my legs."

Amy's jaw almost hit the floor. "You've what?" she demanded in disbelief, a tiny hopeful smile playing on her lips at PJ's words. She couldn't trust herself to believe it could be true, just in case she'd misheard or it turned out as disastrously as everything else in her life lately.

"I don't know how or why," he continued quickly, enveloping Amy and the teddy bear in his arms as he stared down into her eyes. "But I've got feeling. I can't walk or even move my toes, but the return of feeling probably means the swelling is going down and…"

Amy's smile broadened as she caught PJ's line of thought, her eyes attaining a very hopeful and bright quality that they had been lacking in recent months. "…Walking is a lot more likely," she finished. "Looks like we've both been keeping secrets."

PJ nodded as he pulled Amy closer, studying her eyes intently. "I don't think we should hide things from each other like this again, do you?"

She shook her head in reply, barely able to even muster a single syllable response. "No."

He leant forward, tenderly pressing his lips against hers. Amy didn't react to his kiss as he pulled away, tucking strands of her hair back behind her ear as a smile etched itself into her face. Little tears of happiness mixed in with grief found their way down PJ's cheeks as he managed a teary smile. "Everything will be alright now," he reassured her, his voice wobbling as he spoke. "I'll walk again. We'll get married. Then, when we're both ready, we can have lots of little babies. We can have as many as you want. We'll be alright."

Amy laughed at PJ as a smile spread across his face. She nodded, the colour suddenly returning to her cheeks as a kind of genuine happiness filled her heart. Despite the miscarriage and her colleague's departure, she felt genuinely happy. Perhaps because she hadn't felt this close to PJ in a long time. Without her even realising it, she'd let her walls slip back up again and block him out of her life. She wasn't doing that again. "That sounds like a plan to me," she told him as PJ let her snuggle in close to his chest. "I love you, PJ."

He pressed his lips against hers again, his heart skipping a beat in his chest as Amy began to kiss him back. It was a tender, romantic kiss which brought on a wave of their unique electricity running through their bodies. He almost would have sworn that their hearts were beating in time. As they finally broke apart, he reached up to place a gentle hand upon her cheek, brushing her tears away with his thumb. "I love you, Amy Fox. And I'm never going to make the mistake of letting you walk out of my life ever again."

_Now you heard my feelings cry, we'll pick up our hearts and fly_

_The chemistry between us, it will never die_

_How could I live alone, without you there would be no home_

_I wish I said a million times_

_I love you_


End file.
